April Article Ideas

March 28, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 14 Comments

April Article Ideas & April Article Suggestions

Autism Awareness
This is a great time to write first-person stories about your family’s journey & autism. It’s also always a good idea to write basic autism articles, as there are many people who still aren’t sure what autism is and the wide range of disorders on the autism spectrum.

International Guitar Month
I love the sound of an acoustic guitar! This month is the time to celebrate that wonderful instrument. How-To Play articles, History of Guitar articles, Guitars From Around The World are great topics to cover. This is also a great topic for affiliate marketers.

Keep America Beautiful Month
Hopefully they are celebrating this one in your child’s school, but probably not:) So this is a good opportunity to write articles that give families ideas on how one person at a time can keep our country trash and pollution free.

National Child Abuse Prevention Month
This is a very important topic and one that a lot of mental health professionals, social workers, and people who have experience with this topic can write about.

National Frog Month
I don’t know much about frogs but I’m sure there are a lot of frog fans out there. Affiliate marketers can also capitalize on frog collector items, mementos, etc.

National Garden Month
This is a favorite one of mine! I love gardening and plenty of people are preparing their gardens right now for the summer. You could write literally hundreds of gardening tip articles on annual and perennial flowers as well as vegetables.

National Humor Month
The local and national news is depressing — I rather laugh. This is a great time to write funny pieces, promote your stand-up comedy act, or write comedy movie reviews.

National Parkinson’s Awareness Month
Exposure for this disease is starting to grow since celebrities like Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali have it — but it’s still a pretty wide-open topic to cover on the web. Awareness should be the goal for most articles.

National Volunteer Month
I always think about volunteering and I am always looking for opportunities for my children to get involved. Writing articles on volunteer opportunities (especially locally) would be a great idea. There are also a few books out there on volunteering for affiliate income opportunities.

National Mathematics Education Month
My children always do a math-a-thon fundraiser at school in April and it really does what articles around this time can do — and that’s raise an interest and awareness in mathematics for ourselves and our children.

National Poetry Month
Write a poem. Enter a poem contest. Write about great poets or unsung poets.

Stress Awareness Month
Great opportunity here to write about various stress relieving exercises, activities, tools, etc. You could also write about the effects of stress on mind & body. Stress is a great affiliate article marketing topic. There are digital guides as well as plenty of stress relieving products, books, and music to promote.

Week Long Topics
If you’re going to write a week-only topic for April, you need to make sure that you’ve written and published several articles at least 2 weeks before the launch week. This ensures that the search engines see them and rank them. You will also include an article or two the week of and link them to the older articles. Week long topics you could write about for April include:

April 1st
April Fool’s Day
One Cent Day

April 2nd
Hans Christian Anderson’s Birthday
International Children’s Book Day

April 3rd
Find-A-Rainbow Day

April 5th
National Read a Road Map Day

April 7th
No Housework Day
World Health Day

Article Marketing: What Do I Do First?

February 15, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 4 Comments

Article Marketing: What Do I Do First?

Over a series of articles, I’m going to briefly discuss the components of becoming a successful ePublisher and what you should do first to get on the road towards that success. In today’s article I’m going to talk about one of the easiest facets of ePublishing and that’s article marketing. While I cover a lot of things on article marketing on this site, I think one of the most common questions that beginners will still continue to ask me is “What do I do first?” And I’ve really recently discovered that this is the one question that has stopped a lot of entrepreneurs and marketers from moving forward with their article marketing. They just don’t know where to begin.

So let’s talk about effective article marketing…

The key to making article marketing work for you is to write about things that your readers are interested in and that is useful AND to be consistent about it. If you write about only what you think your readers are interested in, chances are your article marketing will not be effective. If you do write something that your readers love BUT you only write on topics like that when the mood strikes you or one and done — then your article marketing efforts will do little for you.

For some reason, a few bad apples have spread an internet marketing tale, and that tale is that you can retire rich in 30 days when you do whatever it is that they are promoting. That’s simply not true. You will not make a million dollars on the web by not meeting the needs of your target marketing and by not performing some sort of marketing action on a consistent basis. You must.

That’s why I balk when people complain about how many articles they will have to write, the time it will take, etc. The fact of the matter is that generating income takes work. It always has and it always will. Any consistent, targeted effort will provide desired results – and the #1 effort I chose to make on a regular basis is writing articles.

1. Article marketing is easy.

2. Article marketing builds credibility.

3. Article marketing builds links.

4. Articles can be repurposed into many income streams.

5. Article marketing is tested, proven, and works for as long as the article is relevant.

So now that I’ve given you a decent dose of reality soup, I’m sure you’re asking to hear the point of this article – What Do I Do First?

The first thing that any new article marketer should do is make the commitment to write and write consistently. If you are going in this thinking you are going to write 5 articles and then wait for the money to roll in, you are not committed to article marketing.

Next, you should then do the research you need to identify 7 points of interest and/or sources of frustration for your market. What do they need help with? What do they want to learn?

You now have your first seven articles. You first short report. Your first seven video articles. Your first seven podcast episodes. Your first seven feature articles for your ezine.

You are ready to ROCK!

Next Up: Article Blogging: What Do I Do First?

Public Service Announcement: Don’t Write While Sleepy!

February 11, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 3 Comments

Writing While Sleepy

This is a public service announcement to all the digital writers and ePublishers of the world! Do NOT write while sleepy. This is why…

1. You’re writing in an impaired state and so you think everything that you’ve just written sounds good!

2. You will make major typos.

3. You will make grammar mistakes that your 8 year old can identify.

4. You will probably not proofread your article because you are already falling asleep.

5. You may rush the article because you just want to finish it.

6. You will run into the dreaded writer’s block because all you can think about is your bed!

7. If you’re falling asleep at the keyboard, your life is seriously out of balance. Make some changes!

8. Perhaps you are really in a “groove” and you don’t want to stop. I hear you – just don’t press publish. Stop when you’re ready and proof read the next day.

9. Which leads me to my next gem – don’t publish while sleepy.

10. Finally, sleepy writing is typically not your best work. If you are writing for your blog or as a guest blogger, this is a bad move. You want to submit your BEST work to yourself and to sites you are submitting to. First impressions do matter. No one wants to buy or learn from someone who can’t spell or write a decent sentence. Sorry – but it’s the truth.

Off Topic Article Marketing Traffic

February 10, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 13 Comments

What To Do About Your Off-Topic Article Marketing Traffic

There are some entrepreneurs out there who believe that article marketing doesn’t work (at least for them) because there is a chance of receiving off-topic traffic to your site. This is a topic that I’ve meant to write about for a while, it was in my “draft” section for months, but thought it was really important to write about today because of a look I took at my statistics recently.

Okay, So What Is Off-Topic Article Marketing Traffic?

Imagine that you own a cake business. You make custom decorated cakes and you send them all over the country. People love your cakes. I can taste the carrot cake now:) Now while you have built this cake business, you have learned some great things along the way about running a business that you’d like to write about and share.

You signed up for Articology or worked with me privately and so you already know how to write a keyword rich article title. You know how to sprinkle your major keyword term through your article naturally and you know how to write an irresistible resource box. So needless to say, people find your cake business tip articles easily via the major search engines.

You check your stats and notice that your traffic has steadily increased and one of the major traffic sources is the referral traffic coming from the articles that you’ve written on building and marketing your cake business.

The people visiting your site because of the articles you’ve written on the cake “business” are off-topic article marketing traffic sources. They are NOT visiting your site to view cakes, to order cakes, etc. They liked your business tips and wanted to read more – period.

Now some would argue that this result is a major waste of time, but I strongly disagree and this is why…

1. While not all traffic is created equal, ANY traffic to your website is better than none at all. People interested in reading how to build a cake business may be so curious about your success that they order a few cakes just to test out the competition. Hey – a sale is a sale. By a fan or a competitor. They both pay.

Any traffic visit gives you a fair chance to convert. Some visitors are easier to convert then others – especially when they are “on topic” but I say an opportunity is an opportunity. Take it and make the best of it.

2. I think that including some off-topic articles in your arsenal gives you a depth as a business owner and as a person that your prospects are interested in. Just the fact that you’ve written articles about how you built your cake business, you have now planted the seed in my head that you are a successful entrepreneur with a passion for cake baking. I’m now all that more interested in whatever it is you have to to offer. Hey, your articles may have just catapulted you in a new stream of income “consulting”.

3. The traffic that I get to my website that would be considered somewhat “off topic” are articles that I purposely wrote because I knew I had some great tips to share about the topic. Now I get a lot of traffic from those articles and some would argue that this only increases my site’s bounce rate because people read that article, don’t see anything else on that topic from me, and then move on and leave the site.

I’m not denying that those articles convert differently then say my article marketing 101 articles, but the key to maximize traffic is to either :

A. Add a call to action to a related offer you may have and help explain the connection between the two topics.

B. Suggest more articles that are indirectly related to the topic you’ve written about to keep these visitors reading your content.

C. Or at least monetize the article with Adsense, Chikita, Amazon, Clickbank, etc.

Off topic articles in the directories or on your blog do not have to be the kiss of death. At the end of the day it’s more important that you are writing PASSIONATELY – and if it happens to be about motherhood or your mother-in-law that day, so be it.

Also, let’s not forget that to get better at writing, you must practice. Off topic articles are simply a great vehicle for this.

So tell me, what do you think? What’s your opinion on off-topic articles and article marketing? I’d love to hear ’em in the comment section below.

How To Write What People Will Read

January 12, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 8 Comments

How To Write What People Will Read – Add The YOU Factor

There is no escaping the fact that writing can be a little daunting. One of the biggest fears for new writers is that they wonder if anyone will ever read anything that they write. Eeck! Yet there is a foolproof writer’s method for making sure that people read what you write – your articles, your newsletters, your book — and it is not about how well you write, how good your editing is, or even how much promotion your content gets. It’s really all about writing your truth.

Okay that may sound a little “fruits and berries”, but I don’t mean it in that way. What I mean is that when you include a truthful backstory or example in your writing — that truth will resonate with people on a human level. A deeper level. The will say, “Oh yeah, that happened to me. Or I know someone that happened to. Or yeah – I’ve thought about that very same thing.”

And that is a fantastic thing!

Once a reader can connect with you on a human level, a personal level, a level where they feel they can understand you and vice-versa – that’s when you have started building trust – and that’s when the reader really starts paying attention to what you’ve written and anything else you are going to write. Whether they agree with it or not.

Example: When I finished writing my first book Relationship 911! – I read it from start to finish and realized that I hadn’t included any real examples of my own relationship in the book, only previous clients. So I went back and added stories about my own relationship experiences, because I didn’t want readers to connect with me only as a clinician, I wanted them to connect with me as a woman, a wife, and as someone who had been through the ups and downs of a romantic relationship but had made it to the other side.

Another Example: Let’s say you are a chef and you are writing articles about food preparation — it’s not enough to just write about the details of preparing a specific dish. It’s much better if you can include something about yourself that you can connect with preparing that dish.

For example: “My mom and I use to do this every Christmas Eve” or “My husband and I like to do this part of preparation together the night before a big dinner”.

Add some of “you” in your writing and you will grow a following of readers that you couldn’t get rid of if you tried. Oprah is a good example of this. There were many talk shows out when she started her own, but there was a way that she was able to personally connect with people on the show by sharing how their story affected her or how she had a similar experience, etc. that resonated strongly with people – especially women. It is why her brand is so strong today.

So when you go to write your next article or chapter this week, remember to not just include the facts and the details. Make sure to include a little bit of YOU as well. That’s how you get people to read what you write, bookmark it, share it, Twitter it, and read it again!

Resource Box Vs. Bio Box

January 3, 2011 By Lisa Angelettie 4 Comments

Resource Box or Bio Box – Is There A Difference?

When you write and publish articles on the web, do you write a resource box or a bio box at the end of your articles? Are you sure that you even know the difference? It’s important that you do because one will convert readers into subscribers, customers, or clients. The other will probably put the reader to sleep! So let’s clear it up right now so that you see better results with your article marketing this year.

Bio Box

Many writers and even article directories refer to the last paragraph of their articles where you can place links to your website, etc. as a bio box. While most use the terms bio and resource box interchangeably (including myself), unfortunately many writers treat their bio boxes as just that – A place to add biographical information about themselves at the end of their articles.

ex. Lisa Angelettie is a published author and mother of 3 from Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. She writes about article marketing, newsletter and ebook publishing from her home office. Visit her at http://LisaAngelettie.com

I could write a little more, but you get the drift. It’s biographical. It’s boring. And only people who were truly interested in me before they even read my article will click the url. Most others will click away.

I think that a lot of people write bio boxes because they’ve seen it done before. If you read major magazine articles, you will often see a short bio blurb at the end of a freelance article. Most of us grew up reading these types of bio blurbs, so they are familiar to us. We think that that is what we should be doing, but the reality is that this “old school” bio box format does not work on the web — especially with article marketing. Instead we all should be using a…

Resource Box

Resource boxes are different. In this paragraph we should make sure to include some sort of additional resources for our readers. The point is to keep the reader interested and to motivate them to take a next step, also known as a call to action.

ex. If you’d like more article marketing tips like this one, grab my all-new article marketing report at: http://LisaAngelettie.com

Again, I could write a little more, which I usually do about why folks should take action, etc. but I just wanted you to see the essential difference. It’s not necessary for me to add biographical information about myself in a resource box, it’s more important that I get the reader to take some sort of action other than clicking away.

You only have a certain amount of space to write a resource box. So it’s important you write with maximum impact. Do not bore the reader. In fact, after just reading one of your info-packed articles, the reader probably wants more tips from you. That’s why it’s best to lead the reader to a page where they can read more, get something free, or opt-in to gain more access to your information.

What If I’ve Already Written Bio Boxes?

If you have bio boxes at the end of articles that are getting views, then you are wasting prime article real estate. You need to update them.

So if you’ve already written a lot of articles and have included a bio box instead of a resource box, most article directories have a place in their interface for you to write a resource box that you can use for all of your articles on that particular directory. So instead of manually adding a new resource box to all your old articles – you should be able to rewrite your resource box and then add it to the end of your old articles. This is a task you could also outsource to a virtual assistant or intern.

What’s A Good Resource Box Call To Action?

After years of article marketing, it’s been my experience that resource boxes that offer a free resource such as free book chapters, free audio, toolkits, ebook, videos, templates etc. are the ones that convert the best. People love free stuff. Make it a high value item such as a multimedia resource (audio or video) and people will really bite.

Conclusion

Are you willing to share a few of your resource box secrets with the readers here? We’d love to seem them. Share your resource box examples or your resource box tips in the comment section below. One external link allowed this time:) So make it a good one!

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 Rewriter – Does It Work?

December 15, 2010 By Lisa Angelettie 7 Comments

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.

April Article Ideas