PRAV TALKS

The best free way to promote a site or blog, pure and simple, is with articles. “Knowledge is power,” and articles help satisfy the public’s desire for information. Videos will play an increasing role online, especially for those who don’t like to read, but they will never be loved by the search engines the way articles are.

Why is textual information so effective? Because it provides keywords and keyword phrases that the search engines can latch onto. It can also motivate appreciative visitors and readers to link to your site. And it can increase the trust and confidence level visitors have in you and your business.

If your visitors trust and believe in you, you will make more sales. After all, you will have proven that you know what you are talking about, and that you are interested in helping your visitors, not just in chasing a quick buck.

There’s only one big drawback to article marketing: it requires writing!

A lot of people hate writing, and most don’t have the resources to hire a staff of writers. Use of other’s articles without permission is plagiarism and illegal. Using private-label rights articles or articles from article directories that everyone and his brother and sister is using will fail to result in unique content for your own site.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to these less-than-desirable options. Let’s look at some of them:

1. Use public domain material. If you use articles that are out of copyright, you won’t have to worry about copyright infringement.

Since such articles have fallen into the public domain, you can do whatever you wish with them; place them on your site, put your name on them, use them for newsletter content, and so on. Of course you do have to make sure that whatever you use is relevant to the theme of your site.

There are a few downsides and caveats to public domain material, however. First, getting ahold of such old material is the first challenge. Secondly, since others may have access to the same material, you have to make sure you are the only one using it. Third, such content may need considerable editing and modernizing to make it relevant, and you will still need to insert your keywords into the material in order to optimize it.

2. Allow guest submissions. These can be highly relevant to your site. However, since guest posts contain resource boxes with links in them, they could lead visitors away from your site (although guest authors often help promote the site that their work appears on).

It also takes time to obtain and evaluate these submissions, so you should only see them as a way to supplement your own material. Ultimately, you should not view accepting guest posts as a quick and easy way to gain content for your site.

3. Contract out to freelance writers to provide articles for you. It is quite possible to find writers who will work for minimal fees. You can specify the keyword and topic you wish to target to the writers.

Original articles are ultimately the best way to build your website content. You will hold the copyright to them because you will have paid for them, and so you can use the articles anyway you want. The less you spend for an article, however, the more time you will likely have to spend on editing, proofreading, and fact checking.

4. The final option if you hate writing is not to write, but to talk! A voice dictation program like Dragon Dictate for Mac or Dragon Naturally Speaking for PC can instantaneously convert your spoken words into text. Many people find this a far more natural method of communicating than typing.

Of course, you’ll have to spend time proofing your work, since, while the software is very good, it is not perfect. Although it never makes spelling errors, it does sometimes make homonym errors, or substituting sound-alike words for the ones you want. However, even if you hand-type your content, thorough proofreading will still be necessary.

No matter how you choose to create your content, take action! Providing valuable information on a consistent basis is ultimately the best way to improve  and promote your blog or website.

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