Lisa Angelettie

Bestselling Amazon Author

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No Cook Fridays – Guest Posting On Lisa Angelettie Blog

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no cook fridays

Yippee It’s No Cook Fridays!

On Fridays in my house, I don’t cook for the family. We eat take out. Pizza. Sushi. Chinese. Or I let the girls have a “free for all” where they cook whatever they want. That typically ends up being a grilled cheese, turkey burger or Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese. I’ve adopted the same “no cook” principle over here on my site. I typically write for my site, make edits, add SEO tweaks, work with clients, etc. Monday through Thursday. On Fridays I like to rest:)

So this is the thing. Social media sites like Facebook come alive over the weekends. People are off work and can share stuff, comment, like and all that jazz because it’s the weekend. I realize now that I need to probably have some sort of fresh content ready on Fridays for people to read and share over the weekends, but I’m going to be honest, I rather be reading one of my kid’s YA novels:)

Which led me to this bright idea…I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before on this particular site and open up Lisa Angelettie Blog to guest posts. Now I already permit guest posts on some of my other sites, I even developed a plugin that allows bloggers to easily accept guest posts, but I wanted to give this site a chance to really find it’s voice in my niche before I opened it up to other writers.

When your article is published on my site you can expect:

1. For it to be published on a Friday.

2. For me to promote it to my networks via social media throughout the entire weekend.

3. For me to promote it to my list via my weekly newsletter.

4. To receive a nice, juicy backlink from my site.

Now I’m going to be honest and admit that I’m very picky and I will have some standards that I simply will not compromise on. I’m also going to be completely transparent and admit that I probably will give some preference (although no guarantees) to submissions from Articology students and graduates. I will do this because I know that they have acquired a certain level of knowledge on writing for readers while also for the search engines. I’m looking for articles that have that delicate balance.

If you think you’re writing is up to snuff, I’d love to feature you on No Cook Fridays:) Even if you aren’t sure, I encourage you do submit anyway. Submitting guest posts to relevant websites is a great way to increase your site’s traffic and relevancy in Google.

Read The Guest Post Submission Guidelines

Ezine Articles New Guidelines

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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 toezine article guidelines 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.

 

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.

 

 

#1 Google Penalty To Avoid

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#1 Google Penalty To Avoid

There are a few experts out there who would like to scare you to death about depending on Google for search engine traffic to your site. While I don’t recommend depending on only one marketing strategy, I do highly recommend implementing good search engine optimization practices to maximize all the real, organic traffic you can attract to your site. Why?

1. It’s free and that’s always great.

2. It’s typically a highly qualified prospect who finds you via a Google search.

3. It’s simple to implement.

So while I think I have covered a lot of fabulous things about grabbing Google traffic as well as the recent Google algorithm updates that have changed the game for some site owners, I thought it was important to give you another side of the coin. Some of the pitfalls (Google penalties) that you can fall into when writing content for the search engines and how to avoid them.

While I could talk about this topic for days, I selected one major Google penalty that you want to avoid for today’s article, because I see it happening so much. Especially by new marketers or frustrated solopreneurs.

Aggressive Link Building

It is no secret that in today’s society we all are looking for a way to do things faster, better, easier, quicker, etc. This is no different with entrepreneurs on the web. Even with all the lightening fast progress that we’ve seen on the web, people still want faster. Even with the great amounts of money you can make online with minimal effort — people still want to make more money by doing less.

In that spirit, a lot of entrepreneurs are trying to artificially build up the ranking and importance of their sites by acquiring links a.k.a. back links to their sites with lightening speed. Unfortunately, this is probably the #1 way for a site owner to suffer a Google penalty and see your site fall in the oh-so-awful Google sandbox. Why? Well, understand the logic…

Google started assessing a site’s importance based on the number of backlinks it had and the quality of those backlinks years ago. Originally the intent made sense, because if you owned a site which was accruing a regular amount of inbound links from reputable sites – it is thought that your site hosted relevant content to the niche you are ranking in. Thus making you relevant and important as well.

Of course Google didn’t count on the fact that marketers were going to figure out a way to put that process on steroids and get hundreds of links to a brand new website in one day, for multiple days! When they saw that happening, they realized that that wasn’t natural inbound linking. And of course Google was not going to reward sites that did this by giving them great ranking – so they began penalizing sites that did this type of unnatural link building and they still do this to this day.

So please be aware of this major link building blunder as you seek inbound links to your site. Do not build links to your site aggressively. If you did nothing and just allow other sites to find your content and link to you naturally there is absolutely no way you will ever have to worry about this penalty. BUT the sit back and wait method is not something I necessarily recommend, especially for folks looking to see immediate results. So in that case, do not actively and aggressively build links to your site by:

1. Joining a large link farm. The quantity and quality of links from this type of source is dubious and Google will penalize you for it.

2. Buying large amounts of links. Google does not want you to buy any links, but if you do, know that you should buy relevant ones and a few at a time.

3. Publishing hundreds of articles at one time. Many people do this because they’ve bought some sort of submission software as a shortcut, but it’s important that you know that you should not publish hundreds of articles at one time. You should trickle the publishing dates so that you do not have too many new links pointing to your site at one time.

In fact, I recommend that you build new links to your site at a rate of 10-15% or less than your existing link totals per month. For example, if you have a site with 100 current links, that means you can safely build in another 10-20 links without drawing any undue notice. Of course, the larger your site, the more links you can safely build on a monthly basis.

Want more writing for Google tips like this? I’ll be talking about a lot more very soon. Stay tuned! In the meantime, take a look at these related articles:

Why Google Still Matters

Did Google Give Article Marketing A Slap?

Also if you have any questions about writing content for Google, feel free to leave them in the comments section below and I’ll answer them.

 

Did Google Give Article Marketing A Slap?

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Did Google Give Article Marketing A Slap Right In The Face?

If you have been thinking about using article marketing for some time but weren’t sure about it, because of the rumblings on the web about Google’s latest algorithm shuffle, then I have a few things to say to clear up any confusion…

Google Slap

First – Let’s Be Clear About What Article Marketing Is These Days.
As all things on the web, article marketing can move and bend and change shape as things shift on the web. It is no longer just a way to take an article and publish it to as many sites (junk or not) as you can. In fact, it is that very act that has a lot of site owners lower in the rankings and crying the blues — because the same articles were published to so many low quality directories and blogs. Quantity over quality is no longer effective article marketing. This is NOT how I get my oodles of #1 spots on the web, and this is not what I teach to nice folks like you. Look at what happened to poor JCPenny!

Second – Article Marketing Is Not Dead  – It’s Just Going Through A Metamorphosis!
Google periodically shakes things up on their end to get rid of some of the dead weight and the site owners that were “getting over”. This is nothing new and nothing to panic about. The reality about article writing is that it will always be relevant because content is the foundation of the internet. This is not about whether to use article marketing, but rather this is more about writing “better” articles and giving a damn about where they end up.

Third – Can You Please Just Step Up?
So how can you become Google compliant? Well the first step, is that you simply need to step up and write better! Stop believing all those hyped up “lazy marketer” ads. If you want a real, thriving business, then stop writing junk that you’ve thrown together in two seconds. Quit looking for a million shortcuts to create articles and other content. Get real in your business and start writing from the heart. That will be a great start to getting your content noticed, read, and virally shared with others.

Fourth – Get Snobby!
The next step is to make sure that you are being selective about where you publish your content. That is imperative. It use to be that you could publish your articles anywhere and get the benefit of a backlink. That has changed. Not Google notices what kind of sites are pointing back to you. Are they high quality? Are they even human updated? Or are they automated junk or scraper sites?

No now you have to be basically a snob and only publish to high quality, relevant, sites. This includes directories, other websites and blogs, and strong social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Fifth – Spread The Wealth
Don’t just limit your article marketing to article directories. Share your work with high quality and niche focused third party bloggers and site owners. While the industry doesn’t call this article marketing, but guest blogging or guest posting, let’s be real about this. It’s all marketing:)

Also, don’t forget to add articles to your own site or blog. This is going to become much more relevant as the years go on. Get in the habit of doing this now. You want to create a direct path from a Google search to your site and this is how you accomplish that.

Conclusion
Let me put it this way, my overall rankings improved with the latest Google shake up. My keywords either shot up to #1 or fluctuated in the top 5 results. The reason for this is that I was a snob who stepped up long before Google forced my hand. Trust me when I say that there are many tricks of the trade to staying in favor with the web’s largest search engine and I’d love to share them all with you, but this just isn’t the platform for all I want to say.

In fact, I am planning a big ole’ Google Love event which I will be inviting you to very soon. Look out for that to come shortly. In the meantime, do you have any questions about the latest Google algorithm updates that you want to ask? Leave them in the comment section below and I’ll get right back to you.

EzineArticles Diamond Level Membership

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EzineArticles Diamond Level Membership

My favorite article directory for new marketers has just unveiled a new (and seasoned:) level of membership – the diamond level.EzineArticles Diamond Level Membership This is not a level that you pay for, but one that you earn – which really is a take on my entire philosophy of entrepreneurial writing.

Let’s face it, there are many writers on directories who consistently submit TONS of articles (most of the time these are outsourced articles), but what you don’t know is that there are reader complaints about these articles made to the directories. There are typos and grammar errors. EzineArticles has their share of these types of  “junk authors” as well – which is the inspiration for creating this membership level.

It’s important to remember that the key to article marketing success and continual traffic is to write high-quality content and abandon thoughts of writing a large quantity of ‘so-so’ content. That is exactly why EzineArticles.com has finally rewarded writers who choose quality over quantity with a new membership level which offers new benefits.

Benefits & Features of EzineArticles Diamond Level

  • You’ll receive faster article review times, faster Member Support responses and unlimited article submissions. Premium members will still receive fastest review and support priority times, but Diamond members will receive priority before Platinum member submissions and email support.
  • A diamond image will be next to your by-line name to let readers know you are among the most trusted members we have.
  • More experienced editors will review your article submissions.
  • You are the best of the best and you’ll be held accountable to that. Therefore, problems in one article could cause you to lose Diamond status.
  • The Diamond upgrade is account-wide. The primary member is responsible for the quality of all articles and alternate author names on the account.
  • Upon request, you may be granted the ability to write articles in the 250-400 word range providing you continue to deliver high value to your readers.

How To Qualify For EzineArticles Diamond Membership

  • You must have at least 10 live articles in your account.
  • Your Author Bio must be 100% complete, including your author photo.
  • You need to submit a request for the Diamond level upgrade through yourAuthor’s Area:
    1. Login to https://Members.EzineArticles.com/
    2. Select “Account Manager” from the dropdown menu, and then select “View Account Status”
    3. If you qualify according to the six points, fill out the form for Diamond Membership and select “Send Request”

Should I Request Diamond Membership?

Absolutely. This is not a “easy” membership to obtain. Standards are high, so if you meet the qualifications which you should if you’ve gone through my training course Articology :), then this level will set you apart from the more average submissions made by the competitors in your niche.

What do you think about EzineArticle’s Platinum & Diamond membership levels?

Article Directories – Worthwhile or Worthless?

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Article Directories – Are They Worthwhile or Worthless?

A lot of people are frustrated with their article marketing results. I know because I get some of the “huffy-puffy” emails asking me to fix what’s broken. Often they do not see the type of traffic they expected from their article submissions.

So the first thing that I make clear to all of my clients when they come to me with this issue is that submitting to article directories is NOT a worthless task. It is not outdated or a waste of time. Article directory submissions are in fact very relevant, still work, and are absolutely worthwhile.

The real key is knowing where to submit and how to submit your articles properly. I teach a lot of this in detail in my Articology training program, but I’m going to break it down quickly for you right now so that you can move forward this year making article directory submissions that are totally worth your time invested.

FIRST – Become An Article Directory Snob

article directory snobRealize that you do not have to submit your article to hundreds or thousands of article directories to make an impact. That’s article submission slumming! I NEVER do that and I still receive highly qualified traffic to my sites from my articles on a daily basis.

The reason why making massive amounts of submissions is not the key to effective article marketing is because all article directories are not created equal. Just like any other website, there are good and bad article directories — and it is a waste of time – and sometimes can even be a detriment to you,  to submit your articles to these low value directories. So with that knowledge, now you understand that you have to be a bit snobby. A bit selective. Only pick the best.

SECOND – Do Your Article Directory Research

A lot of entrepreneurs hate research. I don’t mind it. Whichever way you roll though – it has to be done in order to work smart and not hard. Select the best article directories for exposure in your niche, submit consistently,  and you will see traffic results – guaranteed. Here’s how you do a little quick research:

1. Look at the traffic statistics of an article directory. If the article directory is not getting more traffic then your site – it’s out.

2. Try searching for site info on your directory in Alexa.com. While Alexa does not give totally accurate traffic stats (it only tracks visits from browsers with the Alexa toolbar installed), it is a good barometer of the traffic any given site is getting. A low number in Alexa is good, especially if the traffic # is under 100,000.

3. Do a Google search for the term “article directory”. What sites come up in the top ten? Most of them are article directories, and I am pretty sure that they all have great traffic.

4. It’s not a bad idea to pick article directories with a high pagerank. High PR means that Google places some importance on the directory and it’s content – which rubs off on you too. I like PR4 and up, but if it’s a micro-niche focused directory I will also go for a PR2 or PR3.

5. Okay – if you aren’t going to do a little work on your end, here’s an article directory cheat sheet.

THIRD – Check Out Your Article Directories First Hand

It’s important to check out the article directories you’ve hand selected for yourself when first starting out. This is why…

1. You need to check out the writer’s guidelines of every article directory you submit to. What article directories allow you links within the article body? Which ones don’t? What is the word count requirement? How long can your resource box be? This is important because every directory has slightly different guidelines and knowing how to submit properly will save you from getting your articles rejected.

2. Look around. Does the article directory have an active community of writers? Does the directory offer tips via their own blog or forum? Activity means someone is paying attention and probably will take good care of your articles quickly.

3. What kind of promotion does the directory do? Are they on any of the social media sites like Twitter or Facebook? I like an article directory that does it’s part to attract more readers to my articles.

Conclusion – Article Directories Are As Worthwhile As You Make Them

So the conclusion to the question posed by one of my readers (thank you for the article suggestion James Burow:) is that article directories are as worthwhile as you make them. The keys: Be selective. Do your research. Get the lay of the land.

What’s your thoughts on mass article submissions vs. selective submissions (snob submissions :)? Have any directories you’d like to recommend to folks. Good ones I mean. Share them with us in the comments 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.

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