The Most Effective Technique for Small
Business Visibility
by Mike Banks Valentine
It is extremely effective to write
articles for distribution.
This is the method that has brought more traffic and more
sales for WebSite101 than any other technique. It always
leads to ezine subscriptions, which then lead to more sales,
more and better advertising in the my own Reading List and
more exposure. It is a self-feeding loop that grows your
business non-stop.
If I were to stop writing
articles and submitting them to
other publishers, my advertising costs would skyrocket in
order to maintain the same exposure and visibility for
WebSite101. Having articles accepted by large circulation
ezines and published on high traffic web sites is of far
more value than having an ad appear below the article.
Subscribers of ezines may look at those ads, but they
are reading the articles far more often than the ads!
When you write those articles, put them up on your site
to dramatically improve your search relevance due to high
value content. Content is king when it comes to search
engines and search positioning. I've written another
article (I try to walk my talk ;-) on archiving ezines for
search engine ranking at:
http://website101.com/free_ezine_content/MSN_bcentral_ListBot.html
The crux of the matter is that the publishers that use your
articles will often post them on their own web site in their
own ezine archive, which then boosts your search relevancy
even further due to the link provided in your resource box.
There is another method rarely used by website owners
that is very effective as well -- Participation in
discussion lists targeted to your peers! It is inevitable
that each web business owner will have their own ezine
because it is such a well recognized method of establishing
a relationship with web site visitors and *maintaining*
a relationship with customers and clients.
Your peers are always looking for content for their ezine,
sometimes they will include an article on their website
permanently if it deals directly with an issue of interest
to their visitors! I have done the same with topics of
interest to my own visitors, I have reproduced articles
submitted by my peers on my own site just because a
particualr piece so clearly deals with matters of
importance to my site visitors. I have established
article swapping with some groups of publishers where
we all agree to run articles by each of the others in
a discussion list or professional organization.
Recently each of the members of Paul Seigel's "Learning
Fountain Network" contributed both articles and ads to
each other over several weeks to be run in the ezines
of each of the members of that organization. It leads
to a great sort of cross-pollenation of ideas and the
growth of each of our lists. Of course the main benefit
included several new members for the Learning Fountain
Network when readers of those lists dicovered the
viewpoints of the members of LFN.
Instead of placing ads meant to distract and sell, I am
writing articles meant to instruct and entertain! They
are both means to an end, but the latter establishes
rapport and respect from the readers (ideally) while
the former interrupts and often annoys us with hyperbole
and sales pitch. Obviously those who purchase products
and services based on informative articles will be far
more willing customers than those that were cajoled and
convinced by crafty headlines in advertisements.
I'll go so far as to argue that good writing is far more
important to small web businesses than good advertising is!
Would you rather read 500 words of reason or one paragraph
of exagerated claims when both serve the same end but produce
vastly differing results?
These 500 words have more to say than the 50 in a carefully
crafted classified advertisement. Want to verify that claim?
Take a look at this Google
Ego Search for Mike Banks Valentine.
Try doing the same with advertising copy!
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WebSite101 "Reading List" Weekly Netrepreneur Tip Sheet Ezine
emphasizing small business online http://website101.com/arch/
e-tutorial online at: http://website101.com/shortcourse.html
By week's end you're ready expand your business to the web!
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