How To create & Manage A Successful Article Site

Author: Mark Machaalani

The internet is flooded with an unlimited amount of websites, fresh ideas and free content and even now as we speak is growing at an unbelievable rate. Knowing all this, do you still wish to build a successful article website? The chances of success sound slim, right?

Well it shouldn’t because it actually isn’t that hard. I’ll get straight into it and tell you step by step the main paths I took to accomplishing my popular article website.

First things first, choose a niche topic or market, in my case it was ‘Self Help’. It is vital that you try to remain unique and focus your site on one single topic. Make certain that you do not get carried away and begin adding non-relevant content to your site.

When it comes to choosing a topic, it requires two important steps. Firstly, choose a topic that you are interested in so that you are motivated to build the site. Secondly, choose the topic keywords based on words that are searched for regularly online. Now, in order to get a rough indication of how many people are actually searching for the keywords I wanted to optimize my site for, I used the Overture search suggestion tool. It's not exact, and doesn't measure Google searches, but it does give a very good estimate.

Now it is time to start building the site! I was lucky that my brother is one of the developers of an Online Content Management system called ArticleLive. It’s created by Interspire and is so easy to use. I pretty much had an Instant Web Site that gave a feel and look of great quality. I was able to build and manage my own content site from scratch – and this was back when I had absolutely no technical experience!

One of the most vital factors in order to have a successful article site is differentiating your site from the rest and provoking visitors to always come back. How to do this is basic. Simply make sure that all you provide is quality information. And that was exactly what I did and still do.

There are literally millions of articles for me to upload onto my site from other article websites and from authors submitting their articles to me. Note that you are allowed to copy articles off other websites, so long as you keep the original author’s bio intact.

It is indeed tempting to quickly upload and add as many articles as you can to grow your site quickly and increase traffic. However, this will only be beneficial in the short term. For the long term, you wish for your visitors to come back to your site over and also continually attract new visitors. Quality articles will help make this happen. I made sure that every single article on my website was proof read at least once as well as be interesting and helpful. All articles trying to sell or advertise a service or product were not accepted. Articles with links in the body were also not accepted. Although this process does take more time and effort, the return on your investment can be huge.

One great form of promoting your article site is to do what I am doing right now. Write an article that relates to the topic of your article site – with your bio and link intact – and submit it to well known article sites around the web. This way your link is displayed all over the web, which as a result will help build your Google Page Rank (if you are unfamiliar with the term ‘Page Rank’ I highly suggest you begin researching and understanding the importance of it). In addition to this, your article can be read by millions of people all over the world who are highly likely to click on your link and visit your site, just like you are going to do after reading this article :)

There are of course other important factors that affect an article site such as:
• SEO – Search Engine Optimization
• Google Page Rank
• Customer / Visitor feedback and friendly support
• Website look and feel
• ROI – Return on Investment techniques

However, these factors would require an article all to themselves!

Nevertheless, I can not stress enough the importance of quality. Out of every factor mentioned, quality is the one thing that will guarantee your website success in the long run. An article site that offers free and high quality articles is surely guaranteed to attract new visits and sustain loyal visitors. By simply going through the easy steps I went through before, you could easily have one of the best article sites for your choice of topic.

Remember, quality content results in a quality website.

Mark Machaalani is the co-founder of the best online self help website http://www.accomplishlife.com/. He is also the co-founder of the internet's favourite Health and Weight Loss website http://www.shredweight.com/. Mark has an ardent interest in Self Help and Personal Development and aids people all over the globe through personal and private self help coaching at no cost at all.
Mark can be contacted via email at mark@accomplishlife.com.

Three Core Reasons Why Web Site Content Increases Your Web Site Traffic

Author: Kenneth Doyle

It is now a well established fact that people primarily use the Internet to search for information on specific topics to solve specific problems. Now (of course) there are other ways the Internet is used too.

However, primarily, the Internet is an information delivery medium. It is NOT a "sell" medium (even though that happens). It's simply a matter of identifying the mediums marketing "logic" to work out how best to use it to sell on it.

In essence people on the Internet are looking for content that is relevant to their purpose, need or problem. They typically are not looking for marketing ploys.

Now, there are a number of ways to increase this content, Including having a search engine optimization company provide you with keyword rich articles. There are three primary reasons why more web site content increases your web site traffic.

The first reason more web site content increases traffic to your web site is that content articles tend to be focused on a specific topic. This focus will naturally lead to the repeated use of a specific keyword or phrase. The natural and repeated use of this phrased leads to higher search engine rankings, naturally.

Search engine rankings are the way findings/ results come back to an Internet user when they search for a 'solution to their problem' via a search engine.

If someone searches for the term dogs they will get many millions of pages of results. The order in which these results are displayed on the screen depends on a number of factors including how frequently the term is mentioned on the site and where it is mentioned on the site, and the exact phrase the user typed into the search field on their favorite Search Engine.

In other words, if you get the SEARCH key phrases right, and you continue to create content focused on that topic, you will ALWAYS be on the top of the search engines for that particular phrase.

The Internet is a content driven medium, thus the web site with the most (focused) content within a specific theme will always win.

It's as simple and as complicated as that.

Of course there are other offsite factors such as back linking and RSS etc, but this is not the focus of this article.

Research continually shows that people tend only to click on the first ten results a search engine offers them. Increasing your web site content will help you become one of these first ten web sites (within specific key phrases). This means more people than you ever thought possible will be clicking on your site in no time simply because of your top ten ranking for a specific keyword or key phrase.

Not only will you be closer to the top of the search engine rankings with more content, you will also be indexed by more search engines. This could mean that something like ninety percent of all Internet users seeing your web site in any one given Internet session for a specific key phrase.

The second reason more web site content increases traffic is more complicated. If you have strong, well written content on your site, you increase your credibility with customers.
Suddenly you are no longer a company selling homemade dog food; you are somebody who can offer knowledgeable advice about anything a responsible dog owner needs to know including house training, leash laws, and sleeping problems.

This increase in credibility not only makes people believe what you have posted to your site, it also makes them want to stay at your site LONGER to read the rest of your content articles on a topic about which they are PASSIONATE and ACTIVELY searching for on the Internet.
The more keyword focused content articles you have on your site the easier they will find you and longer they will stay there.

Keeping people on your site as long as possible is the key to selling your product to them.
You simply have more time in which to pitch them your product or service (in multiple ways) and thus close more sales. Not only will they stay at your site longer when your site has more focused content they are far more likely to return to your site the next time they search the Internet for information that's within your topic.

For example, if you are selling refilled printer ink cartridges, and you have content on your site which relates to all things printers you have a far better chance that someone might stay to look at a few of your other articles on your web site.

However, the next time they need digital photo printing tips, chances are good that they will remember what great content you offered them during their last Internet session, and they will return directly to your site just to read more of your topic focused content.

This means you have their complete, undivided attention for an even longer period of time this time. Moreover, if they are returning to your site on a regular basis, chances are good that they will recommend the site to other users like their friends and relatives which will mean even more traffic to your site.

The final way more web site content increases your web traffic is that it increases the probability that advertisers and reciprocal link exchangers will be attracted to your site. Reciprocal links are exchanged by web sites that have similar interests. The more relevant topics you are able to list, the more chances you have of someone with similar interests attempting to link to your site.

This could greatly increase your web site traffic because not only will people be able to find your site through search engines, they may also be able to find your site through other sites. And, advertisers are looking for sites that encourage customers they want to do business with. More keywords will mean more customers for you, which can mean more advertisers for you, which can mean more profits and visibility for you.

No matter which reason you choose to add more content to your site it will always increase your web site traffic.

This can only mean good things. Continually adding keyword focused content to your web site is one of the best ways to grow your web business. You can have these keyword rich content articles written for you, or you can write them yourself.

Whichever way you choose to go here be sure that your articles are well-written. Badly written articles will do little to increase your web site traffic, and most likely will affect your credibility.

About the Author: Kenneth Doyle Is A Writer And Internet Marketing Consultant, Find Out About His SEO Article Writing And Submission Service Gets Thousands Of Prospects To Read YOUR Offers, Here... *SEO Article Writing Submission Service*

CyberSpeak - What 'Web 2.0' Means To Us

There has been a subtle yet incredibly important change with the way the Internet is used. It's been going on for at least a couple of years, but lately we're beginning to feel the enormous cumulative effects.The result is a very different kind of Net - one that has even earned its own name: Web 2.0.

This isn't a separate Web. In fact, chances are you've been using it. Unlike Internet2, which is a separate entity, when people speak of Web 2.0 they're speaking of the way existing technologies are being used to create an entirely different online experience.

You can't easily point to a piece of software or the way a Web page is designed and say "This is part of Web 2.0." The effect is cumulative. In fact, there isn't even agreement on what the term "Web 2.0" means. For some, it's about a new generation of websites that use a set of technology called AJAX (asynchronous JavaScript and XML) that allow them to offer applications - word processors, spreadsheets, and more - that work as smoothly and quickly as software on your hard drive. (Check out Writely.com for an excellent example.)

Others see it as a collection of sites and pages with well-labeled content (sometimes called "the Semantic Web"), so that information on one site is understandable to other sites. For example, if content on my page were labeled as breaking news on a particular subject, other sites that aggregate news content would know to grab it.

But there is a fairly common thread binding these visions of Web 2.0 - and it's the idea that defines the most important concept. Instead of treating the Web as millions of separate sites, each offering its own content, Web 2.0 operates as a gigantic collaborative effort, with everyone contributing directly to the community.

Think of Web 1.0 - today's Web - as a neighborhood where everyone's home or business is open to everyone else. You can walk into the Smiths' house and browse to see what's interesting.
In contrast, Web 2.0 is a single building, not separate houses, where everyone puts their things on the shelves for others to browse. It's labeled ("This appears courtesy of the Smiths"), but the content itself makes the community, rather than the separate buildings. The building is simply an aggregator.

It's a subtle but important distinction.

Tag you are it.

I have some photos on my website - you're welcome to browse. That's Web 1.0. But I also contribute to Flickr, as do thousands of other people. Flickr and its kin (such as Buzznet) create communities with content provided by their members. Because that content shares a framework - keywords in Flickr's case - you can browse through photos of a subject of your choosing.

In a way, you create ad hoc communities by using Flickr to look only at pictures of horses, for example. With Web 1.0, you could look at individuals' horse pictures, site by site. In Web 2.0, Flickr builds the framework for the community, aggregating all those equine images. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Another example: del.icio.us. Ostensibly a place to store lists of your favorite sites, it's evolved into a lot more. Del.icio.us lets you share your bookmarks using tags, similar to what Flickr does with images. If you find a great page about horses, you can give it a del.icio.us tag of "horses."

Others who come to del.icio.us and search on that will find the most popular sites with that tag.
In a way, it's sort of a human-generated Google. Rather than computers using algorithms to process a search, del.icio.us relies on its users' contributions. Search on "RFID" and the results aren't based on how often the word appears in the text, or how many sites link to it, but how many users found it interesting.

Take that very example. A Google search on RFID has RFID Journal as its first hit. The same search on del.icio.us brings up How To Make A RFID Blocking Wallet. RFID Journal is number two on the del.icio.us list; an article on making an RFID-blocking wallet is 30th on Google's (and it's a different article).

It's not just about a better or different search engine. As the del.icio.us folks put it, "You begin building a collaborative repository of related information, driven by personal interests and creative organization."

It's a world populated by human interest.

Two other examples of Web 2.0 are almost too easy, but I'll mention them just to avoid e-mail on the subject: Wikipedia, the user-created and -edited encyclopedia, and P2P file sharing via protocols like BitTorrent. Both use the power of the community, not individual site owners, to create a 'product.'

And sites like the aforementioned Writely word processor do more than let you use a Web-based application to do office work. They also let you easily share and collaborate on projects - again, using the Web to create a community, even if a small one.

What's mine is yours.

What does all this mean to the nature of the Web and how we use and share information? How does it change the notion of "content"? Or copyright?

Owners still own, creators still create, and both are acknowledged for their roles. Both retain some control over their creations; both can make money from them. But the default is changing. The expectation will be that content is shared. It does not become community property but the Concept of limited sharing ("only you and you can listen to this song") is deteriorating quickly in the digital age. It has to.

Web 2.0 didn't cause this sea change. It's a feedback loop. The seeds of change were planted with the first message boards and blogs, when people came together in communities. Web 2.0-esque applications came out of that, and accelerated the change as the Flickrs and Technoratis and del.icio.uses of the world caught on.

What the end result is, I don't know. (I don't know that there is an end result.) But I can clearly see that the future of "content" - and the future of creativity - lies with all of us, not each of us.

Source AP