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 You Struggling With Implementing What You Learn?

December 3, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 2 Comments

I have a question for you this week…are you struggling with implementing what you learn when it comes to marketing your business?

Consider all the articles you’ve read, videos you’ve watched, audios you’ve listened to, information products you’ve invested in, teleseminars or telecourses you’ve signed up for. How many pieces of content in your niche do you think you’ve consumed? 100? 1000? More?

Now think about the time you’ve invested reading, listening or watching all of these bits of information. Do you think you’ve spent a week, a month, a year or even longer of your time consuming all of this information?

Finally, consider the cost of consuming this content. How much money do you think you’ve currently invested in ebooks, information products, telesminars, workshops, etc. $100? $1000? $5000? What about intrinsic value. What about the time away from actually doing things in your business, with your family, for yourself at the expense of reading one more book or listening to another two hour teleseminar.

Now don’t misunderstand me here. Consuming content that can directly educate you about what’s going on in your niche or how to grow and expand your business is very important. Crucial even. But the key element that many entrepreneurs, especially solo professionals, tend to make when consuming information is actually implementing the strategies after they’re finished.

Hey, we’ve all done it. I did it a lot in my early years online. Mainly because I was totally overwhelmed with all of the information that I was consuming on building my business and improving my marketing. It was a lot! And there were many strategies. Lots of experts. And much of it was conflicting. I was truly swimming in a pool of quicksand and I can safely say that I know there are a lot more entrepreneurs who are currently in the spot that I was in back then. Is it you?

Here are some of my tips to get out of the sinkhole and back on land where it’s safe!

Pick One Marketing Strategy That Resonates With You And Do Only That (for now:)

The first thing I find when I work with clients is that they are trying to implement every marketing strategy that they’ve learned all at once. Needless to say that scattered implementation process does not produce results. Instead you need to focus on one strategy at a time and when you’ve mastered that, move on to the next. For me that first strategy was article marketing. For you it may be another content marketing strategy, such as video articles or guest posting.

Blow Up That To Do List!

Most people who are struggling with implementation are overwhelmed by the sheer number of things that they have on their to-do lists. I’m laughing as I write this because this was me FOR SURE. I have an old list that had like 123 things on it. The problem with this is that you only complete #1 and maybe #2 but you look at your big ole’ list and feel like you haven’t accomplished anything. So you don’t do anything the next day because you are all bummed out. Ick!

Take that list and blow it up! Pick out the top 10 things off of the list that are easiest for you to do and will make the most impact on your business. Now tomorrow you will tackle the first item on that list. You may have to chunk that item down into mini steps to get it done. Check off each step as it is completed. So your list may look like Item #1 and then a,b,c, under that item. When checked off it feels as if you’ve gotten a lot accomplished that day (and you have!) and you’re in a better place mentally to handle the next thing on the list.

Get Yourself Some REAL Accountability

This is probably the most effective strategy I used to kick my butt into gear. It’s simple. Check around with the leaders in your niche, and I guarantee you that they all have a mentor and/or a coach. The reasons to hire someone to help guide you are endless, but one of the major reasons that it’s always better to have a coach in your life is the accountability factor.

The reason why is that the person you bought that information product from really wants you to implement their strategies and see results but they’re not going to email you or call you to make sure that you did. Once the transaction is made — that’s it. But when you invest in a coach, you’re investing in someone’s expertise and their ability to keep you on task.

My business completely changed once I did this. Many of you know that I often talk about my mentors. They were very important to me and still are. I currently have 3 coaches and have seen the results in my income literally triple because of them; and I’m proud to say that I too hold all of my wonderful clients extremely accountable for moving forward in their businesses:) Do you hear me guys?

When To Write Your Halloween Articles

August 18, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

When To Write Your Halloween Articles For Optimal Search Engine Placement

Halloween is the BEST holiday for one of my favorite income streams – affiliate article marketing. While I do not spend a huge amount of time on affiliate article marketing, I do like to do some strategic affiliate article marketing on certain holidays and Halloween is definitely one because of the growing size of the market annually as well as the surge in popularity of all things supernatural (vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, etc.) right now.

Remember Her Hairpins?

The time to start writing your Halloween articles for the season depends upon a few factors such as where you will be publishing the articles (on a PR1 vs PR 5 site?) and the traffic the site gets, etc. Your backlink juice matters when it comes to timely affiliate article marketing, so if you know you have an uphill battle ahead of you, it’s a good idea to get started with your Halloween affiliate article marketing in the summer — like mid to late June.

Now if you know of a few major sites that you can publish your articles on and get good PR power and traffic numbers from them – then you’re golden and can write as late as the first week of October.

People are often shopping for Halloween costumes, accessories, and party supplies up until the very day – so as long as you have some visibility in the market – you will get some hits and hopefully click conversions.

I myself like to write up to the last moment:)

SO – if you haven’t written your Halloween articles yet, you still have time, so get started. Here are a few articles that I have written in the past discussing good Halloween affiliate companies to work with, hot Halloween keyword phrases, and more info to get you going:

Top Halloween Keywords – Lisa Angelettie

Have You Written Your Halloween Articles? – Lisa Angelettie

Affiliate Article Marketing: Writing Halloween … – Lisa Angelettie

Halloween Affiliate Article Marketing – Lisa Angelettie

Learn more about writing & publishing articles for the web with my new article marketing toolkit found only on Facebook.

How To Create A Trackback URL

May 25, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 248 Comments

How To Create A Trackback URL

For a web writer, links and backlinks are serious business! We love ’em. So today I wanted to discuss with you the value of using trackback url links and how to use them in your blog.

What Is A Trackback?

First of all, it’s important that you understand what a trackback is. A trackback is a method for web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their articles. This enables authors to keep track of who is linking, and so referring, to their content. Blogging platforms such as WordPress, Drupal and Movable Type, support automatic pingbacks where all the links in a published article can be pinged when the article is published, although WordPress is considered the favored platform for trackback linking. Side Note – Blogger does not support trackback linking.

Let Me Explain Trackbacks In Even Simpler Terms…

If you are cruising around my site and you see an article on creating a custom Facebook url that you want to share with your readers, the obvious thing to do would be to link to that article: http://lisaangelettieblog.com/how-to-create-custom-facebook-url/. Linking to this article from another trackback enabled blog (like another WordPress blog) would automatically create a trackback link.

This type of link that lets me know that you have made reference to my article and it also lets me know in which article on your site you did this – by including a link to that article. At best this gets me interested in you and I will visit your site and read (and possibly refer) to some of your articles as well. We could build a relationship. At worst, you at least have my attention and you have a backlink to your site on my site.

Where Would I Find A Trackback Link?

The way trackback links are displayed can differ based on the type of blogging platform you are using, and even if you are on a WordPress blog, the display can differ based on theme. But for the most part – you will find trackback links in the comment section of your blog or right before the blog comments. This is what a trackback looks like on one of my fav’ sites Problogger:

Please be aware that some blogs show trackback links differently and this is usually dependent upon the preferences you have set up for your blog’s comments. For example, on my site, I just show the link to the referring article. I don’t include the excerpt like Problogger does.

Other sites do enable trackback links but choose not to show them on their site, while others choose not to enable trackback linking at all (which I don’t agree with), but this is probably due to something out there called “trackback spam”.

What Is Trackback Spam?

Well, if you start seeing some trackback links from totally off topic sites or if you get a trackback link from the same site every time you publish – you are probably receiving trackback spam. It’s a good idea to delete those trackback links because they are basically fishing for links all over the web. They aren’t really referring you to any qualified reader that would actually visit your site.

The WordPress plugin Akismet does a really good job of keeping trackback spam at bay, although there are a few other solutions out there such as Simple Trackback Validation that do the same thing as well.

How Concerned Do I Need To Be About Obtaining Trackbacks?

You really cannot force trackback links to your site. They happen organically because someone liked something you wrote on your blog – end of story. So I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Just pay attention when you do get your first few trackback links and see if the blogger would be someone with whom you could build a relationship with in the future.

What you can do purposefully though is refer to relevant articles yourself and build trackback links on other sites. Do this only when you really like the content and preferably on a high traffic blog. The reason why I say high traffic is that most trackback links are NOFOLLOW links, so the advantage of having the link is so that a human being (the blog owner and/or a reader) will see it and click on it. There is no SEO benefit, although there are a handful of blogs that have purposefully turned their trackback links into DOFOLLOW links.

*Bonus Tip – TweetBacks

There is also something called Tweetbacks. That’s when a link pops up in or under your comment section because someone on Twitter has referred to (linked to) one of your articles. This is just another great way to continue the conversation about your content in the social media stratosphere. We like these too!

How To Create A Tweetback

So for instance, if you wanted to recommend this article to your Twitter followers, you would copy the url of the article, shorten it using tinyurl or bi.tly etc., and create a tweet adding that link. Once you do that, a tweetback would automatically appear in my comment section from your Twitter profile.

*This article idea was submitted by a valued reader. Feel free to submit article ideas you’d like me to write about over on my Facebook page.

How To Add Audio To Your Articles

January 26, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie Leave a Comment

How To Add Audio To Your Articles: Give Your Articles A Voice

One of my coaches writes articles regularly on her blog and always has an audio version of the article available as well. While she has been doing this for years, there was something about it the other day that truly hit me. I didn’t have time to read one more thing that day, but I really wanted to get that content. So I really appreciated the audio version of that article a lot more this week!

Why Should I Add Audio To My Articles?

The #1 reason why you should consider adding audio versions of your articles to your site is for the simple fact that it gives your community of readers an option on how they learn what you have to teach. Some people learn visually, some learn better through listening (auditory). Giving readers options improves your chance of getting more people to read your content, join your list, and convert into sales.

So How Do I Add Audio To My Articles Lisa?

Well I’m glad you’re on board! And if you have a WordPress blog – this can be really easy.

1. Record your audio. I’m on a Mac so I use a Logitech earphone/microphone and the Garage Band application (can also use Quicktime Pro) for recording my audio. That gives me really great audio quality, and I can use it for audio on my sites, for podcasts, audioclasses, etc. A freeware program that both Mac and PC users use is Audacity.

2. Upload your audio. Most likely the audio you create will be in a Mp3 format. That is the most common audio file that recording programs make. You can upload this file to your site/blog and it will create a clickable link that will most likely open up into a new page where you can listen.

3. Convert your audio. (optional) Most computers come with Flash already installed, which is why if you want to ensure that almost every computer owner can listen to your audio, you will convert it to Flash. If you are on WordPress, you can do this with many plugins. I use audio player, which automatically converts all mp3 files on my site to Flash and then creates a little audio player as well for visitors to click on and listen to your audio article.

4. Pay for convenience. (optional) There are services such as BYOaudio and Audio Acrobat where you can record or upload your audio, convert it, and create a nice audio player for your website. If you create a lot of audio articles this may be a great option because these sites serve the files for you – you do not use your own server space. This is also a good option if you do not have a WordPress blog.

* Here’s an example of how I add audio to one of my articles: Start Article Marketing

What Else Can I Do With These Audio Articles?

A great thing you can do with your audio articles is to submit them to iTunes to create your own podcast. With the explosion of iPods and smartphones, it’s realistic to think that someone will actually subscribe and listen to your podcast these days. People have more access.

Conclusion

Adding audio gives a fresh take on old content and creates a higher perceived value. While you don’t have to do it with every article you write, it may be a good idea to give some of your best work – your voice.

10 Things I Learned About Article Marketing In 2010

December 23, 2010 By Lisa Angelettie 8 Comments

10 Things I Learned About Article Marketing In 2010

Please check out my latest guest article over at BizChickBlogs.com. It’s all about the 10 things that I’ve learned about article marketing in 2010. I never think of writing these types of “reflective” articles, so it was great fun writing this one. Look out for big things in 2011 for this site:)

Article Writing 2011 – Stop Writing So Old School!

December 21, 2010 By Lisa Angelettie 5 Comments

Article Writing 2011 – Are You Ready For The Revolution?

Are you ready to stop writing with an old school agenda and move forward?

I recently wrote and published an article on this site about my article marketing income breakdown and whew! I got a lot of emails from you all with excited comments and questions about how you want to create your own varied sources of income online. And that was really the point of that article.

I wanted you all to understand that online article writing is not just a one dimensional activity. The goal is to transform that one article into many versions of information and many sources of income. This is not necessarily a new thing that business owners do online — but it is one that I bet you’re not taking full advantage of or at all. Let me ask you some tough questions that I asked some of the folks who wrote in the other day…

How many articles have you written this year?
None. Two or Three. How do you expect anyone to find you in the sea of millions of websites on the internet?

How much new traffic did they bring you?
None, because you didn’t write much. Or maybe you have no clue. Can you say CHECK YOUR STATISTICS?

How many new subscribers signed up with you?
Not hardly enough. This is all due to the fact that you aren’t driving enough traffic to your site. You don’t have any content out there doing the job for you.

How many podcast or audio articles have you recorded?
None – I can’t even get ones written Lisa! Well, you’re missing out because you can take the same articles you’ve written and turn them into audio articles. Put ’em on iTunes and bamm – instant podcast.

How many video or video articles have you recorded?
One or two. Video is hot! Again, you can produce even more using the same articles that you should have written.

How many free reports have you created this year?
I couldn’t get myself together to pull it all together. Really? If you had 5-7 articles written you could have. Video is hot, so it’s important you take advantage of it.

How many ebooks, ecourses, or other information products have you created this year?
It was one of my plans but time got away from me this year. Publishing your own original content this year will be crucial to your credibility and your success. Ebooks are no longer for amateurs. Best selling authors like Stephen King are focusing on ebook publication now.

How many ebooks, ecourses, or other information products have you BOUGHT this year? Is it the same as the books you’ve created? Is it double the amount? Triple?
No, I buy a lot of information products online. There is just so much information out there. You have to be careful not to slip into the bright and shiny new product matrix! Focus on creation, not consumption.

I see this all the time. People keep investing their hard earned money into product after product, looking for THE solution to their online business — and not really creating creating the types of information necessary to get the message out about their great business (article marketing).

Also I see that people are not creating the types of products (ePublishing) that could create a nice passive income stream for their business. Heck in my income breakdown, you will see that ebook sales (my own books) was my second highest income generator for 2010. So what do you think I’m going to do in 2011? More of the same!

Article Writing in 2011 is going to be about more than simply writing any old thing and submitting it to every directory you can find. That is so old school! It’s going to be about designing content to support your business and branding platform, your message, and what you can teach or show people.

Look for me to help you jump start your New School article writing at the top of the year, and if you don’t mind, I’d love it if you’d share your answers to the questions I asked above about your 2010 article writing in the comment section below.

Article Marketing Income Breakdown – 2010

December 20, 2010 By Lisa Angelettie 4 Comments

My Article Marketing Income

As our year comes to a close, you will no doubt read dozens of articles and emails from folks on what you should do to improve your writing, your blogging, and your business for the following year. I myself love to set business intentions for myself every new year — but before I do that — I thought that it would be a good idea for me to share something that I’ve never shared with you all before. Where my income comes from…

This was a cool exercise for me to do this year, because I am not going to even lie and say that I am meticulous about my business bookkeeping. I’m not. I basically know what comes in and have a round about idea on what bills have to be paid monthly (like webhosting, autoresponder, coaching, etc.) This actually took a bit of digging and calculating, but here it is – and I’m proud of myself! First, that I compiled this for you and secondly, because I did pretty well this year.

What’s the point of showing this to you?

Well, I want you to see that there is income to be made through article marketing and to give you a little direction of how people are REALLY making money online. Not some hyped up claims. This graphic shows my income breakdown for LisaAngelettieBlog.com (which includes Articology.com), GirlShrink, as well as a variety of other micro-niche sites that I have built and run. So here it is…

COACHING
As you can see from the graphic, a major portion of my income came from coaching private clients this year. I expect this number to stay the same or perhaps grow as I transform the way I deliver coaching to my clients in 2011. While I at first shied away from taking on coaching clients a few years ago, I have since discovered that delivered in a certain way — coaching can be rewarding for both me and the client as well as a serve as a lucrative income source for my business.

EBOOKS
The next largest source of income for me comes from selling ebooks that I have written and published. I am very happy with this number because last year I made a concentrated effort to put more energy into ePublishing. I knew it was the wave of the future. I know it’s lucrative if you write information people really want – but I had a little trouble with execution. I always had a bright idea but had a hard time putting those ideas into action. This year was a turnaround year for me because I got a lot more organized once I introduced a writing and publishing calendar in my business.

ARTICOLOGY
Third comes my income from my continuity program a.k.a. article marketing training program for newbies – Articology. I have guessed that this percentage was probably higher last year because my ebook stats were lower and because I launched it over a year ago. Sales are always better in the beginning of a launch and then they taper off. I expect this number to decrease if I do nothing, but my plan for 2011 is to grow my affiliate team. So perhaps that number will stablize with the help of affiliates.

AFFILIATES
Next comes my affiliate income which typically was my highest source of income until I decided to take on private clients. Affiliate income means all the money that I make promoting other people’s products and services. This includes biggies like Amazon, Commission Junction, Clickbank as well as smaller affiliates.

SERVICES
My next percentage comes from money I make providing Done For You or DIY services for clients which I really haven’t promoted in a big way at all yet. When folks ask me, I do it. Things like setting up Thesis Optimized WordPress Blogs, squeeze pages, etc. These are all essential parts of successful article marketing, yet I don’t want to make them a really big part of my income because they are time consuming.

ADSENSE
Finally — my lowest percentage comes from Adsense revenue. This number fluctuates as I add niche websites to my ePublishing group. I’m also always testing the advantage vs. disadvantage of using Adsense on certain sites (like this one). I had Adsense on here for a time, and made some money from it, but not enough to justify keeping it on the site. I thought it was too disruptive to the flow of my information here. I’m not really looking to increase this percentage for 2011, I just want to see an incremental increase over the next 12 months as other parts of my business increase in revenue.

CONCLUSION
I’ve created all this income around using the solid principles of writing articles and using them for marketing purposes as well as re-purposing them into ebooks and ecourses (ePublishing). The coaching I do is all on article marketing and ePublishing. Look out for me to talk more about this over the following days and how you can take steps towards making a real living online with article marketing and ePublishing in 2011. It’s going to be a great year!

Are You Writing Articles That Attract Your Ideal Clients?

Are You Struggling With Implementing What You Learn?

I have a question for you this week…are you struggling with implementing what you learn when it comes to marketing your business?

Pick One Marketing Strategy That Resonates With You And Do Only That (for now:)

Blow Up That To Do List!

Get Yourself Some REAL Accountability

When To Write Your Halloween Articles

When To Write Your Halloween Articles For Optimal Search Engine Placement

Learn more about writing & publishing articles for the web with my new article marketing toolkit found only on Facebook.

How To Create A Trackback URL

How To Create A Trackback URL

What Is A Trackback?

Let Me Explain Trackbacks In Even Simpler Terms…

Where Would I Find A Trackback Link?

What Is Trackback Spam?

How Concerned Do I Need To Be About Obtaining Trackbacks?

*Bonus Tip – TweetBacks

How To Create A Tweetback

How To Add Audio To Your Articles

How To Add Audio To Your Articles: Give Your Articles A Voice

Why Should I Add Audio To My Articles?

So How Do I Add Audio To My Articles Lisa?

What Else Can I Do With These Audio Articles?

Conclusion

10 Things I Learned About Article Marketing In 2010

10 Things I Learned About Article Marketing In 2010

Article Writing 2011 – Stop Writing So Old School!

Article Writing 2011 – Are You Ready For The Revolution?

Article Marketing Income Breakdown – 2010

My Article Marketing Income

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