PROMOTING YOUR WEB SITE WITH ARTICLES

The first two lines are my affiliate link for an e-book that I
co-wrote. Next I give details of my web site, to bring in
traffic. Finally, I advertise the complete list of my articles.
TIP: Write your resource box in the third person - for example
*Dianne created and runs* rather than *I created and run*.

What can you write about? Anything that you can! What is your
site about? Do you have a hobby? A job? Experience of life? There
are web sites and ezines covering any topic you can think of -
and webmasters are always on the lookout for new material. From
aardvark breeding to zero gravity - they want your articles and
expertise!

TOOLS
You'll need a text editor program, not a word processing program.
Why? Your WP program uses invisible control characters to store
formatting information such as end of lines. Webmasters don't
want these, as when they copy and paste them to their ezine or
web page they'll cause errors. So use a text editor instead. Text
editors don't give you all these formatting extras. Windows
includes NotePad, but I prefer the freeware NoteTab Light, from
http://www.notetab.com/ as it has many more features. If you want
a spell checker, you'll need to upgrade to the paid version.

You will also need an auto-responder. You can store your articles
so that publishers can send for an automatic e-mail copy. Some
article banks only display the title and outline, with a link to
your auto-responder. I include the e-mail address of my *master
list* at the end of every article. Both publishers, and their
readers, can then send for other articles of interest to them.
There are several free auto-responders on the web. I use
GetResponse at http://www.getresponse.com - if you want ad-free
e-mails, you can upgrade to the paid version, otherwise your
articles will all have a short ad at the start of each one.

FORMATTING
You'll need to format your article so that it can be pasted right
into a page or ezine - publishers are much more likely to use
it. However great your content, having a huge editing task will
stop many webmasters from choosing your work. Most ezines are
formatted at between 60 and 70 characters a line. I format all my
articles to 65 characters, to try and please as many people as I
can.

If you have web links, include the full address, including the
*http://*, and make sure you have a space before and after the
link. That way they'll be clickable in e-mail programs and web
browsers. Use *mailto:* before e-mail addresses for the same
reason.

As well as your resource box, don't forget a copyright notice,
such as *Copyright Dianne Reuby 2001* . (Use your own name, of
course - unless you want me to get the glory!) All the sites and
mailing lists below allow the author to keep the copyright -
always check this before submitting to a publisher you haven't
used before.

WHERE CAN YOU PUBLISH YOUR ARTICLES?

There are two main methods - through mailing lists (e-mail) and
article banks (web sites).

If you belong to mailing lists, you'll know how these work -you
post either at the web site or by sending an e-mail to the post
address. The moderator sends out the posts to those who are
subscribed to the list. When you post to a free-content list,
include the words ARTICLE SUBMISSION and the article title on
your e-mail subject line.

SOME OF THE MAILING LISTS I USE:

Article Announce - many topics in several lists. Choose the
list(s) that cover your topic(s).
Directory - http://www.web-source.net/articles/
Subscribe - mailto:article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com

ArticlePublish
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ArticlePublish

ArticlesArchives - Internet, How-to, Small business
http://articlesarchives.netfirms.com

EzAdSuccess - articles and ad swaps
mailto:subscribe@ezadsuccess.com

Ezine Articles
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
mailto:join-ezinearticles@ezinearticles.com

Free Content - business articles (this has a wide range of
business topics)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content

PublishInYours
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours

SOME OF THE ARTICLE BANK WEB SITES I USE:

Idea Marketers
http://www.ideamarketers.com

Marketing-Seek - they also send out details of your article to
their mailing list
http://www.marketing-seek.com/

Opportunity Update - mostly net marketing
http://www.opportunityupdate.com/

UltimateProfits
http://www.ultimateprofits.com

MailBiz
http://www.mailbiz.com/mailbiz/magcat/

WWIO
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shmtl

Seed Your Web
http://www.seedyourweb.com/

Free Sticky
http://freesticky.com/stickyweb/

Advertise Online - lots of web and writers resource links, as
well as articles
http://www.advertise-online.net/

Each site or list has slightly different rules about content -
the
topics it accepts, how often you can post. The things that they
all have in common is that you must use the authors resource box,
and you cannot make changes to any articles that you use. Most
general lists and banks are strict on language and content - if
you plan on adult themes, look for a specialist list.

Some of the mailing lists also send out details of publishers
(webmasters) looking for articles - if you see a topic you have
covered, or could cover, e-mail the webmaster. Be sure to specify
your publishing rules, the title, number of words, and the target
readership if the publisher has several topics. For example:

******
Title: Starting a web site
This article is suitable for new webmasters.
Word count: 768 including resource box, at 65 chars per line
It may be reproduced freely in ezines and on web sites as long as
it remains unchanged and the resource box is included.
******

Some authors ask the publisher for a copy of the ezine, or the
URL of the web page on which it is used. If you store your
articles on an auto-responder, you will get an e-mail whenever
someone sends for a copy.