By Keith Longmire

Article writing and distributing articles is still the best way to increase the web site traffic and search engine ranking for just about any web site. Spend anytime on internet marketing forums though and you will find no shortage of gurus telling you that duplicate content has killed article marketing dead.

Let’s get one thing straight – duplicate content should be a central plank of your article marketing strategy.

Stop. Shock, horror. An article extolling duplicate content – off with his head.

To put a couple of other matters into context – I have no patience for the duplicate content generated by the myriad of auto site generators, article spinners or site scraper software. The sooner that sort of content is removed from the internet the better.

Private label rights (PLR) articles have a place in providing useful web site content but have no place in an article marketing strategy.

To see how duplicate content should be used to turbo boost your article marketing an example is in order.

I have a web site on Goal Setting – www.goalsetting.jkl.co.uk. Obviously I want to promote that site. Equally obviously I want to use article writing and marketing.

The techniques used in goal setting are very simple and almost universally applicable. So I write an article called something like “Goal Setting – 5 Techniques That Everyone Should Know”. It’s a good article – fresh, original and packed with good, solid techniques and information.

And it bombs. Very few web sites take it as content. Very little web traffic is generated.
What has gone wrong?

There are quite a few reasons. The headline is hardly a benefit laden ‘must read’ for one. But that’s not the biggest issue. The big problem is that while goal setting may be a universal problem all of us think of ourselves as individuals. Our problems are unique. Anyone who doesn’t understand ‘my’ problem can’t possible be able to help me.

So if you want your article to be read you have to show that you understand ‘my’ problem and tell me how your solution solves ‘my unique problem’.
Goal setting is simple and based on a few universal principals. So wholesale changes to the body of the article are not required. What are needed are changes to make it appeal to specific target audiences.

For instance you could change the title to “Goal Setting: 5 Techniques Proven to Transform the Live of Busy Teachers”, or “Goal Setting: 5 Techniques Proven to Transform the Live of Busy students”. Or auto mechanics, accountants, solicitors, chiropractors,…
There really is no end to the possibilities for making this article call out more to specific target markets.

Simply changing the title/headline alone won’t do the trick on its own. You would also need to change the opening paragraphs a little too. How about something like:

“As a busy teacher you don’t need me to tell you how tough it can be to balance the competing demands of students, parents, colleagues, administration and the curriculum. Every day there are fresh demands, new legislation, new subjects to learn. It is a never ending treadmill. Goal Setting has been proven to transform the lives of teachers just like you…”

That becomes:

“As a busy auto mechanic you don’t need me to tell you how tough it can be to balance the competing demands of customers, colleagues, vehicle manufacturers and government red tape. Every day there are fresh demands, new legislation, new subjects to learn. It is a never ending treadmill. Goal Setting has been proven to transform the lives of auto mechanics just like you…”

You get the idea. The interesting thing is that for a 600 word article you will have only changed 20 or 30 words at most. If the search engine gurus are to be believed that will mean all of your articles will get rejected by the duplicate filter monster. Yet this is simply good marketing practice.

Every marketer has done exactly this since marketing began. You tailor your basic message or offering to appeal to specific niche markets. Every salesman does it pretty unconsciously.

Give it a try. I guarantee that you will get each article on many more web sites and gather much more traffic than you would with the original article. It doesn’t take long to do either.
All we need is a little common sense among the article directories.

About The Author

Keith Longmire specialises in helping small businesses grow using the web. Article writing and distribution is a core concept. Discover more at Article Writing for Web Traffic

By Ozer Tayiz

If you’re considering building a business for additional income, part-time or full time, I believe your best option is building an information marketing business. Here are my top reasons:

1) You have no limits on your income

With most other business the more time you spend, the more you earn. And because you have a limit on your time, you limit your income also.

When you build a profitable marketing system, every time you put in 1$ to marketing you make 2, 3, 5 or even 10 dollars. Spend more on marketing, and you earn more.

2) You have high profit margins.

When you buy an information you don’t pay for the cost of paper and ink, but for the positive impact that information might bring to your life.

How much would an day trader be willing to pay a winning stock tip? Thousands? Would he care if it is hand written on a napkin?

That’s the beauty of it. They can easily be sold for 10 times the cost.

3) You don’t have to create the product or be the expert yourself.

Do think it would be hard work to create a product?

Good news is, you don’t have to create the product your self. You can interview an expert. The recording is a product. You can also license other people’s products to resell.

The product is the easy part. The hard part is marketing.

4) Your business can run on autopilot, even while you sleep.

You can set up your marketing systems so that they run automatically. A sale can be made on-line when you’re asleep or even at a holiday.

That’s the same for offline sales, too. You can outsource everything. There are people who will take your orders on the phone for you, duplicate your products and ship them.

5) It has low start-up costs

You can start with a 10 page “report” that you write, buy the cheapest classified ad on local newspaper, and sell it for $5. I bet you can start it for less than $100.

One of the health newsletters I’m a subscriber of costs $67 per year, and it consists of 8 pages of information sent monthly.

6) It requires no license, education etc.

It takes years to be doctor and open your own clinic. You can decide today to become an information marketer, and you’re in business today. Find a market, research what they want, and sell it to them. Easy.

7) You work once, get paid over and over again.

Sure, it takes some work to create a product, set up marketing… But you get paid for it again and again, as long as you can sell it.

It beats trading hours to dollars, even at high paid jobs. $100,000/yr makes $50/hr. If you sell a product for $100, 1000 sales a year beats that, because it can be done -very- part time.

You can do it anywhere in the world.

You can be anywhere in the world earning money. In fact, you can be on vacation in Hawaii and you’ll still be earning money.

9) You can do it on any economic climate.

It is recession and depression proof. In every market, there are people willing to buy information. “How to make sure your business survives depression” “How to find a job while everyone else is waiting on the line”… Just a few ideas…

10) It’s a business you can be proud of.

Sure, there are other ways to make lots of money fast. Like robbing a bank or printing counterfeit money. However, information marketing is the closest thing to printing your own money, without being illegal or immoral.

You’re really doing people a favor by providing them the information they want.

About The Author

Ozer Tayiz is the author of this article, which is a part of a free email course, called “ Introduction to Becoming an Information Millionaire in 10 Lessons”, which you can subscribe from www.infomarketingtips.com . Subscribe to get exclusive action steps, and surprise gifts.