Monday, November 26, 2012

Repackage, Repurpose And Reinvent To Get The Most Mileage From Your Content

It took some time but you managed to put together the feature article for your upcoming newsletter and you're pleased with the results. It's a shame this great information will just be filed away on your computer or left to collect dust on your bookshelf with the rest of your valuable content.

Does this sound like you? Did you know that most business owners just write for their blog or newsletter and never do anything further with it?

Let's look at some ways you can repackage, repurpose and reinvent your articles, blog posts, videos and more to get the most mileage from your content producing efforts.

Here's what you can do:

1. Post your newsletter article to your blog.
2. Add a link to your newest blog post from your Facebook account.
3. Submit your newsletter article to the article directories.
4. Combine several similar themed articles to build an information product or e-course.
5. Compile articles with related topics to create an e-book.
6. Compile articles with related topics to create a book.
7. Record an audio or video of your article.
8. Transcribe an audio or video into a special report.
9. Restructure an informative or instructional email reply to a client into an article, blog post or training teleclass.
10. Rework chapters of a book or e-book you have written into several shorter articles.
11. Transform your e-course into a live in-person workshop.
12. Record a live workshop or online training to deliver as a self-study course.

To be most effective you will have to do some editing to restructure to the new format. Otherwise, you are only limited by your imagination and creativity.

It can be challenging to constantly create brand new information but you can break down the bigger pieces or combine the smaller pieces of content you already have to develop new and valuable information. When you're coming up with ideas for articles, blog posts, videos and other content think about how you can repurpose the information from one format or method of delivery to another later.

Not only are you preventing your content from going to waste, there are other reasons why you should repackage and repurpose your content:

1. To build a source of passive income by selling the e-products that you create.
2. To grow your list of prospects by offering a free giveaway to visitors to your website in exchange for them giving you their name and email address.
3. To create visibility and catch the attention of your market.
4. To establish your credibility and expert status.
5. To reach a larger audience by providing various ways for someone to work with you, if not one-on-one. For example one client may prefer to learn independently through your self-study course while another would rather absorb the information by attending a live in-person workshop.

Choose your packaging based on your strengths and how your market likes to receive their information to create multiple products from one set of content. If you're trying to grow your business and you're at full capacity with clients, repurposing content is a great way to increase your income stream.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

How to Turn a Dull Article Into a Blockbuster

They say the internet, being what it is, is an information superhighway. And if you want a piece of the action you're going to want to feed the search engines with information relevant to your niche so people can find you, your website, and your products. How? You'll want to go back to basics. Write! And in order to keep them on that page and reading your articles, you'll need to ensure that your articles are interesting and most importantly, readable. This article will offer tips on how to turn a dull and bland article into a more interesting piece; how to rewrite your articles with a fresh and more interesting angle; and how to research for fresh and current content to boost your search engine traffic.

Let's say you've written a bunch of articles and want to rewrite them. To begin with, check to see if your previous articles contain outdated information and topics that will not pull in traffic from the search engines at this present time. So instead of re-writing by simply doing a quick clean up job, why not go a little deeper by scouting for hot news websites like Google Hot Trends and pulling related article topics and content from there, and broadening your new piece using a content angle from these hot topics? Then, you should attempt to re-write the article (to the best of your ability) using correct grammar and spelling.

Rewriting Tips: if the previous title lacked oomph, re-title it! And then run a search on Wikipedia.org to dig up some more facts and some background. Without going too heavy on fact - this isn't an encyclopedia, it's only an article. You'll want your new article to flow well, and most importantly, have your reader come away with something. Take a look at the following example in which a badly written paragraph gets a serious rewrite.

Example of a badly written paragraph:

"Buying gemstones in wholesale need not be a headache. These precious stones have for many years been held in high esteem due to their color, clarity, symbolic meanings and durability. The diamonds, sapphires and rubies all come in many different shapes, hues and sizes. The colors too cannot miss the attention of whoever might come across them. Buying gemstones in wholesale will demand that you get high quality stones from wholesale chains at a price good enough to be lower than the retail prices. The following simple steps will assist you when buying gemstones in wholesale."

My Remarks: Everything about the above paragraph leaves much to be desired. Not only is the grammar bad - it's quite obvious English isn't the writer's first language - but to top it all off, the article lacks purpose. However, whilst looking on the bright side, I managed to pick up a few angles to run with. See how I reconstructed the paragraph below.

Example of the above paragraph rewritten:

"If you could purchase high quality gemstones at wholesale prices, wouldn't that be a relief? The less headache involved in procuring your precious stones the better, right? No-matter what you want to buy, be they diamonds, sapphire, ruby; in all shapes, sizes, colour or clarity, believe it or not, there will be someone, somewhere selling them at a much lower price than you would ever find on the high street. How? Because you can buy them on wholesale... if you know where to look! In this article, I share some simple yet powerful tips to help you buy gemstones on wholesale."

In summary: badly written articles can be quite easily given a fresh look with a new angle that is readable and that draws in the reader to want to find out more. Your first paragraph is the most important, not only because it introduces the article, but because it is intended to help lure your reader in so that they read on to the next paragraph and so forth. Look to Google Hot Trends for fresh angles that are current and weave that into your piece. So the next time you want to liven up a dull article, get creative with the pointers outlined in this article.

Monday, November 19, 2012

It's Not What You Write, It's the Way That You Write It - Well, I Disagree Completely

Not long ago, I had an online article author contact me, someone who had a bit of writing experience. I mean he could really turn a phrase, and it was obvious he went to writing school, was intelligent, and quite articulate. He explained to me that credibility online is extremely important, and thus, perhaps I ought to hire him to write and/or edit my work, as he had noted that my writing is not all it could or should be.

True enough, he's right, but then again I never considered myself a writer in the first place. I know that sounds funny coming from someone with over 28,000 online articles and 289 e-Books, but it's true, I know it and anyone who reads my articles - well, they know it too. I am not a first class writer, just a writer perhaps still in training. As he was explaining his knowledge of writing and public relations to me, I kept singing that song in the back of my head; "it's not what you do, it's the way that you do it," which is an HP jingle for rebranding their copier, printer, scanner, and fax line of peripherals.

Then I thought, well, what he is really saying to me is that; "it's not what you write, it's the way that you write it," but, you know what - I think I disagree and let me tell you why. You see, if you are writing on a topic you don't know anything about, sure it might be great to make the article cute, fun to read, and turn a nifty phrase, but what about the expertise, knowledge, know-how, or experience behind it? I can't tell you how many articles I read in the news each day that are shallow, uneventful, and often just plain wrong. Why does this happen? It happens because writers think that it's more important to write well, than to have great content - I disagree with that thought process.

Now then, whereas, I am not the world's best writer, I do believe I have a hell of a lot of experience and knowledge. I'd also say it is more important the content than the writing style. Yes, in a perfect world you'd have both, but I think content trumps style, thus, "it is what you write" which is important, and while it is important to write well, aka "the way that you write it," that's not the deal breaker for me as a reader. Give me the good stuff anyway you can, and develop your writing skills as you go. That's what I did, and that's what I believe. Please consider all this and think on it.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

SEO Friendly Content for Websites

You are done with creating your website, you have paid the web developer for the services, and now you are looking for web content articles? Many people all over the World Wide Web have done this thing and now they are in search of quality content for web sites. Web site content is something that is the prerequisite of each website because it has the power to persuade people and make them buy the product or service offered by your business.

You need to frequently generate articles for website content so that people may not get bored from your content and they keep of coming back to learn new stuff. Web site content needs to be informative and it should be complete. It must be created according to the preference of the customers. If it will not then it will never make a customer get attracted towards it. Many websites have such great content that visitors after reading get convinced to buy the product and service being offered.

In order to generate articles for website content you will need the services of a quality writer. The writer should be well familiar with the standards for writing articles. As the trend of making websites has increased, the scope of internet writing has enlarged to a great level. The websites are paying a significant amount of money to the writers for producing web content as well as articles for the websites. The writer should know how to produce SEO friendly content. If the content will be SEO friendly then it will be found in the search engine results more often.

When writing SEO friendly content, you will have to use certain set of keywords that are searched by the customers more often. The content produced should not be flooded with keywords. Rather, keywords should be placed in such a way that the flow seems natural. The content should also be informative and it must have something that is new for the customers to learn. Such things attract people a lot. Furthermore, the content should be original there must not be any copied content.

Finding the writers who can write articles for website content is not a difficult task these days. You can find many freelancing websites that have accounts of various writers. That is not all; many of the writers have posted ads for offering their content writing services. If you need one, then you can easily find one through the internet. If you want to judge the quality and writing skills of the writer, then you can ask the person to write a sample. You can check the originality of the article in various software programs, and read it to see whether it is written perfectly or not. If you are satisfied with the work then you can hire that person. Content generation sure can make a writer earn a lot of money.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Make Money With Affiliate Marketing By Writing Articles

Affiliate marketing is my favorite technique for earning extra money from home. This is because it is easy to connect people with the products they are looking to purchase. In this article, I will discuss how to make money with affiliate marketing by writing informative articles. Do you love to write? If so, you can probably do REALLY well with this method. So what do you have to do?

First, you need to research your market effectively. What is it that people want to learn from you? Do they problems that you can help them solve? Understanding your target market is the first step. Let's say that I want to make money with the dog training market and I've decided on a product to promote. Would I then promote this product to people who want information on small animal care?

The trick is to match your product with the market. If you are promoting a product that teaches people how to stop their do from chewing, then you would want to write articles about that. Teach people simple techniques to stop dog chewing problems. Then, link to the product that can help them solve that problem. That's the secret. So many people forget to match the product with the people who want it.

After you have established which people would be interested in learning more information about a topic, write down all the different questions that these people might be asking. Then, write an article that helps them with each question.

This is a powerful way to attract people to your affiliate products. At the end of the day, it's all about getting people to visit your affiliate links. If you are consistently writing articles about all the different topics in your niche, people will believe that you are the authority in your niche. They will come to you for answers. They will buy your products.

A great place that you can find affiliate products to promote is ClickBank. They have been around for over 10 years. Once you join their affiliate network, you will be able to browse their marketplace and locate the best converting products to sell to people. Remember, you are not doing the selling. It's the vendor's job to sell the product and it's your job to get people to the sales page.

Here's what I suggest for article marketing:

Write as many articles as you can in one day. I know this might sound hard but the fact is people are looking for the information you have. So write LOTS of articles each day and focus on targeting all the best keywords in your market. Affiliate marketing can truly be a great source of income if done correctly.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Have English Teachers and Journalist Majors Overplayed Their Hands In An Attempt to Control?

As an online writer, I've sure noticed that us newbies are not liked that well by journalist majors and professional writers. But, I am okay with that, after all, they see as a threat to their future employment. I've also witnessed some attempts by English Teachers to somehow proclaim that those who can't or won't write well -- perfect grammar and spelling -- are somehow to be considered incompetent, unintelligent, or uneducated, therefore what we say or write shouldn't be taken at face value, that somehow we don't have credibility.

Really, because in the real world (outside of the fake world of the mass media where most of the stuff is embellished to create the sound and fury of the day or push an agenda) it's not what you say or write, it's what you do that matters, performance counts. Those who spend all day writing are not doers, they can't be, they write about what "We Do" out here in the real world. Now that the online venues, blog, and social networks are allowing everyone to have their say of course 'the professionals' want to be heard and diminish and minimize the rest. I get that, I understand, but it doesn't make their attempts to pull rank over the dialogue or attempt to control the narrative with their grammar rules.

Do online writers abuse proper English Grammar Rules? Oh, certainly, some meaningfully, others simply because they are not sure exactly what they are. Indeed, I think what I am noticing is the when folks use speech recognition software they tend to do this more, so, they end up with long run-on sentences, which eventually stop making any sense, and then become shallow - even if there is at least some good information within - it just gets drowned out.

Still, personally, as a reader, I am much more concerned with important information and content, than perfect diction, grammar, and spelling from a skilled and educated writer. For the simple reason that those in the real world make it happen and those who teach, well, they teach and guard the rule book - just like lawyers often do. So, if someone has excellent knowledge and wisdom, bathed in actual experience that's what I look for, now if their grammar is perfect to boot, all the better, but not a criteria for me as a reader, it's just a bonus in my opinion.

Still, even if my above paragraph is not perfectly grammatically correct, so what, I mean you got the message right? Indeed, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Monday, November 5, 2012

For the Love of Words: Introducing Articles

Good gracious, the day has come for a deep spooky eyed, surgical strike at the depth of writing an article. Is it easy as some people make it or difficult like learning Italian over a week. It is time for me to take a little mystery out of article development and break it down into sections. Article writing is a learned skill and it must be polished over the course of the river that we know as time. Article writers will vary on their ability and style to developing the core elements to their topics. Is there a wrong way?

Article writing is an art that expands into other writing arenas. Most article writers may cover up the truth of the matter, that constantly developing unique articles is not a strain to the old muse. They would be further from the truth or less experienced in denying the fact that article writing is a ghost that plagues the creative soul sphere in all of us. Article writers that say it is an easy task to do are either using spinning software or outsourcing to a foreign team.

Can article writing be easier if you are prepared? Yes, like most skills in life that you have or are acquiring, your particular knowledge will help develop and nourish the infant. We can find mentors that can harbor the passions within us to overcome the difficulties of developing the content that we so desire for our websites and business use. Once we overcome the initial fear or destructive elements in our path to developing a successful article, we can embrace the warm cup of coffee and tea and congratulate ourselves on a job well done.

Wait! Sit back and contemplate on the last time you had to write an article describing a particular endeavor in business marketing, product overview or creative lay into the unknown with a high-profile blog post of cross-corporate culture vs. social media downgrades of the small business growth on the mainstream scene. If you are a writer or writing firm like me, then it is almost a constant stress of developing the perfect balance of information and tone.

Is article writing a state of mind? To some degree, it is and to some degree, it is not. If you are constantly developing dozens of articles than yes it is, but the creative aspect is keeping you sane. If you only develop a few articles a month, then the answer is no. The mind is not always ready to find, search and trash information as you write the article for yourself or the client that is overseas. The cold truth of article writing lies within the writer itself and rather if they can push the envelope to challenge themselves in keeping in step with truth and de facto information.

Friday, November 2, 2012

How to Make Money Writing Articles

Make Money Writing Articles - In this article, we are going to talk about a strategy that you can employ and that I am already beginning to employ on making money writing articles. In this article, we will share specific places where you can go and make money writing articles and, more importantly, a strategy for being successful.

Writing has been one of the most fulfilling things that I have ever done online. I have always wanted to create passive income. I loved the idea of not doing a lot of work and getting paid. I started out investing in rental properties. The concept is great. I put up some money, borrow some money and somebody else pays off the mortgage.

If I do well, I would put some money back into the pocket each month. The problem with this strategy is that one bad investment can be an emotional and financial wipeout. I am speaking from experience on this one. Then, I decided to move online and do lead generation for people looking to make money online.

I used paid traffic because it was fast. The challenge that I had with this strategy was that it became very expensive to invest in the traffic while I was learning and getting good. Although I could be profitable one day, the next day I may lose my shirt.

Then I moved into outsourcing content creation. I figured that content would be there forever and I could pay for something once and get paid on it forever. This worked and was profitable but was not very fulfilling.

Although I was learning the passive income models, it was not a passive experience. That is when I read the book, Accidental Genius and I learned about free writing. You see, I have a mind, probably like a lot of you that goes 10,000 miles an hour.

I have a lot of good ideas but my mind would not slow down long enough for me to implement any of those ideas. I found that writing would allow me to get those ideas out on paper. Even better, I could share those ideas with other people and could make money doing so.

Now, I write and I write and I write and I get compensated pretty well for it.

Below are some lessons that you may want to consider if you are attempting to make money writing articles -

Do not be stingy with your ideas - I used to have the feeling that I should not put my best work into each article and should save my best ideas for future work. This became stressful and difficult to manage. Now, I share the best ideas that are on my mind and give 100% to each article. what I find happens in this case is that as soon as I get done sharing about one idea, a new idea pops into my head immediately. There are no shortage of ideas so don't be stingy in sharing your ideas and putting your best work forward.

Learn how to re-purpose content - Write something once and you can reuse it for other purposes later. Here are a couple of ways to re-purpose content -

- Make a video based on an article that you wrote.

- Take one idea from the article and expand on that and make a completely new complementary article.

Post your content in multiple places - If you want to get a lot of eyeballs on your work, post it in many places so there is a greater chance that more people will find it. (Note: If you sell your articles to other, then do not do this. That person paid you a fair price to do work and that content is theirs and should only be theirs.)

Don't take yourself too seriously - People like to read work that is done by human beings. They would much rather be entertained and surprised and deal with a few simple errors, then to read a perfect peace of content. Have one with your work, regardless of the topic and you will find that you get better responses from those who are reading your work.

Follow the three tips above and you will be in the right state of mind to make money writing articles.