Internet Marketing News – Search Engine Marketing

If you read anything much on the web, you have probably already been told … many times … that video article marketing is the ‘next big thing’ in customer engagement and website advertising. We won’t repeat all of that – we’re going to assume that you’re already converted to the cause! We will go through the basic steps in creating your own video article marketing pieces, though – from idea to reality.

Decide on your video type
There are three main types of videos produced for article marketing, in terms of their format:
* Screen capture
* Live action
* Animated
If you want to show people how to do something on a computer, screen capture will be your format of choice. You can use Camtasia, Live Demo, or IshowU on a Mac. Live action is the most common format (and there’s nothing wrong with that!), and animation is most often used for humor videos … but can get pretty expensive.

Screen capture recording tips
To get the best out of your screen-capture style video article marketing:
* Speak slowly – about 25% slower than usual
* Edit everything at the end, don’t go back and forth deleting to try and get it right the first time
* Imagine a friend sitting next to you while you’re talking
* Keep your mouth about 3 inches from the mic to avoid windblast distortion

Live action video recording tips
Live action is much more common, and also a little harder. Here’s how to do it well:
* Use Windows Moviemaker or iMovie on a Mac to edit your videos
* Aim to do voiceovers after the main video has been recorded – it will be easier to hear you when speaking into a mic in a quiet room, rather than out in the noisy world.
* Cerate a storyboard for your video
* Use a tripod to avoid camera shake
* Keep your camera angle simple
* If you don’t pay attention to anything else, pay attention to your lighting!

File types
For screen capture videos, the most common formats are SWF and FLV – SWF is smaller, but lower quality. It is also more common. For live action movies, .wmv, mpg and .mov (Quicktime format) are the most common.

Video article marketing does have plenty of potential, but is certainly a learned skill! Get expert help to save time in the learning process.

The only reason that anybody writes content is for people to read it … anything that isn’t supposed to be read goes in a little journal and gets put under a pillow at night! On the web, high traffic content is good content, and today we are looking at some of the secret techniques that article marketing services use for creating high-traffic content for clients. These article marketing service tricks are applicable to just about every single business on the web, and contribute to your web site advertising strategy.

Create a series of blog posts
When people discover the beginning of a series, there’s a far higher likelihood that they’ll return to find out what the rest of the posts say. Your series could be structured in any number of ways:
* As a miniature workshop
* As the coverage of a time-limited event (like the NBA Playoffs, or the presidential election)
* As a traditional story – usually from your own life, and usually with some sort of helpful point!

Create experiential posts
Most companies create quite a lot of content that is aimed at building them up as experts in their field. However, when people are flicking through your blog archives, you’ll often find that the titles with a personal flavor are those that are most clicked and commented on. People love to find some human interaction within the cold world of the computer monitor. Give your story a point, and it’s a sure winner.

Ask your readers questions
This is a quick and easy trick that article marketing services use to drive engagement. When you ask your readers a question, you force them to either think critically about their topic, or relate their own experience to your services. People like feeling smart when they know the answer to a question … and that can drive plenty of traffic!

Structure your writing
Every writer should do this … few actually do. Your writing should be structured, with an introduction, sometimes a conclusion, subheadings, and bulleted lists within those subheadings. Article marketing services know that people will find your information more valuable, and be far more inclined to pass it onto others, if they can place it within a structured framework in their minds.

One of the major differences between the way that people read in real life, and the way that they read on the web, is speed. On the web, people skim. When they are reading newspapers or books, they read in depth. So, while some article promotion topics are worthy of an in-depth analysis, most of what you write for web publication needs to be adapted for skimmers and scanners. This is how you do that!

Cut it down to the bare bones – Your Title
One of the most important places for you to cut down what you want to say to its ‘bare bones’ is in your title. You might be writing an article about purchasing office furniture, for example. A title that ran something like:

Using whole-of-life cost accounting to ensure that your office furniture purchases are good value

Is very likely to be ignored. However, a title that sounded something like:

Five Ways to Save on Office Furniture

Or even simply:

Get Discount Office Furniture

Would get far more clicks. As people are skimming and scanning, if something looks like too much ‘work’ to understand, people don’t even bother. They skip to something that looks more succinct.

Cut it down to the bare bones – Your copy
Apply the same logic to your copy. If you’re a conversational style writer, you’ll often fid that you take 50 words to say what can be cut down to 20. I understand! Don’t stifle your flow by editing words out as you go; just go back over what you’ve written at the end when you’re doing a final proof and edit.

You can also help improve your skimmer and scanner credentials in your article promotion by utilizing the inverted pyramid process that journalists write by. Put the most important piece of information first. Then the next most, then the least important piece. All of a sudden, you’ll find that your article are getting more reads, your by-lines are gathering more clicks, and your website is doing more work!

Incoming search terms:

• skimmer scanner

Article marketing is one of the SEO tactics that will probably be around for some time to come – simply because it panders to the very reason for the Internet’s existence … to provide information! The first lesson you’ll read on article marketing, no matter what the source, is to publish informative content.

While we aren’t disputing that guidance here, we would like to add that there are plenty of subtle ways to include sales-oriented copy within your articles and use those documents to help push conversion as well as helping your customers and building you up as an expert. Remember not to overdo these article marketing sales tactics, and you could do very well out of them!

Giving something away
Let people know if something valuable is free in your article. This is a great way to drive traffic to your website, and also drive conversion rates. You don’t have to make a big deal of it – people naturally pay more attention to the word ‘free’ than just about any other word! If you hype anything too much, many article marketing syndication sites will reject your article.

Show people how your service saves money
A less powerful version of the above tactic, but one that will still help you get clicks, is to show people how a product or service can save them money. Again, don’t hype this fact to much – keep to your original informative aims – but don’t forget to mention it!

Highlight novelty
If something is new, make a big deal of it in your article. People pay attention to things that they haven’t heard of or seen before, and it’s a great curiosity arouser that will help actually get people clicking through to your website.

Let people know if something is risk free
As in the first three tips for article marketing, let people know if a particular service or offer is risk-free in some way … but don’t overdo it.

Incoming search terms:

• marketing sales tactics

Submission services provide a range of benefits for the online business owner. There are several types of services available, including news release services, article directory services, and web directory services. Each type can do something different for your business. All should be used within your business to create a unique, functioning tool that meets your needs on a regular basis. Having the right type of professional in Internet marketing to help you with submissions can help your business to grow in terms of having a larger number of visitors each day. Using these services can help just about any business online.

One type of submission service is a press release, or news release service. This type of service works to hand out your business’s press releases to all of the news medium that accepts them, or to those that you want the press release to go to. The benefit of this is that it provides your business with the resources for announcing news. You can announce your company’s launch, a special you are hosting, the features you are offering or anything else that is considered newsworthy. By doing this, you allow people to get to your website once they find your press release.

Another form of submission services is for article directory services. Not all Internet marketing services offer this specific type. Here, the articles are created for your website, generally about the product or service that you are offering. They are not promotional in terms, but rather educational. The articles are submitted to article directories with your website’s link at the bottom of them, as well as your name and information. By using these services you help to get the word out about your website, and you create back links to your website. This can help with search engine ranking as well as getting more traffic to your website in general.

A third type of submission service that may be available to you through Internet marketing services is a web directory submission service. Getting your website into all of the search engines is a necessary step in making a name for yourself and for getting your website out there for potential customers. In order to do this, you can go through each of the web directories manually or you can wait around until they naturally pick up your website. This can take a great deal of time. Instead of going through this waiting game, many website owners will instead use a web directory submission service. This is a fast and simple way to get quality submissions quickly.

There are many ways to use submission services, but the underlying important fact here is just to do it. This is one of the best ways to get your website out there and it is fundamentally the safest way to do so as well. If you are looking for a way to increase traffic to your website or otherwise to get people to buy from you these submission services can be the best route for you to take.