Marketing Made Easy: Let Your Fingers Do the Talking

As the owner of a small website, I know how easy it is to get lost in the mix. Sometimes you just want to throw your hands in the air and say, "I give up! Pass me a margarita."

But before you go reaching for the tequila and salt, let me tell you something. It's not as hard as you think to get links, get noticed and start actually "doing business" with your online business. That's the idea after all, right?

Here's how I approach the problem: I write two or three short 500-800 word articles a week about my business, and then I submit them using an online submission service. The service is budget-friendly, super-easy to use and extremely effective. After just two days, I looked for my article and it was posted on more than 50 websites.

That means each of those sites contains a link back to my site, and more inbound links means -- you guessed it -- better search engine results positioning. Before I knew it, I was getting more than 200 hits a day on my site. "Unbelievable!" I thought, but it was true.

Here's the idea. You write a few short articles each week -- or as many as you can churn out, the more the merrier -- and submit them either using a service or software you've purchased that serves this purpose. (Psst! Guess what? A service is a thousand times easier.)

You can select a category for your article, such as Business, Fashion, Marketing, etc. and then select subcategories that will pin your article to even more specific needs if you like. The benefit to categorizing your article is that it will show up in front of people who are looking for your product, service or website. If you write about Children's Fashions and you turn up in a newsletter about lawn care, people aren't going to read your article or click on your link.

The way you choose to submit your articles is also important. Software is an option, but I don't like it because it is quickly (some would argue immediately) outdated, clunky and hard to use. First you have to install it, then you have to figure out how each aspect of the program works, then you have to write your articles -- the fact is, most people aren't going to bother once they've got the thing installed.

The thing I love about online submission services is that they do the heavy-lifting for you. All you have to do is write your articles and submit them, and they do the rest. Different services have different features, of course, and you should do the research to see which one is right for your needs.

iSnare is one service that offers "distribution credits" to its authors. Submission is free, but in order to have your article distributed, you must purchase these credits. It's $10 for five credits, $18 for 12, $38 for 28 and so on. They distribute articles to more than 150 article email lists and over 40,000 publishers, plus hundreds of article sites. They have good reviews from satisfied customers on their website.

ThePhantomWriters is another option. Be sure to include "the" in the title, because there is another website called PhantomWriters that offers writing services, not article distribution. ThePhantomWriters service operates on a sliding scale. It costs $35 to submit one article, and then the next three are $27.50 each, on down to $20 apiece for 10 articles. This is a little steep for my budget, so I moved on pretty quickly from Phantom.

The service I prefer is Article Marketer. They are very professional and courteous, and they tell me when I have something to fix about an article before it can be distributed. At $79.99 for three months or $239.99 for an annual subscription, I can afford to write as many or as few articles as I want. I get unlimited submissions with my subscription price.

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