The Road To Free Traffic Is Paved With Articles

As a writer, writing should be our passion recounting everything from 5 inch goblins storming a giant’s castle, detailed to-do lists, to describing in exact, colourful language why your friend is such an arse in his latest Facebook photo. So I know you will just jump at the chance to write another several pieces of mastery in article form. No, don’t look at me like I’m a slave master with a whip. If you want free traffic, you’ve got to put in the effort, anyone who tells you they’re where they are today for free, must be fresh off the funny farm.

The main goal of the internet is to provide information and entertainment; this is what people search for. So to get free traffic you need to give away some of your knowledge or provide a little entertainment. The more you teach others what you know the more information they want from you. What you need is to give them good quality information, or a well written entertaining analysis so that the reader will visit your site. Don’t be lazy and just write one, flog this method for all it’s worth because very few writer’s know these avenues exist. Once you have written several articles complete with an about authors section - including your web address - you publish them on sites such as ezinearticles.com or goarticles.com. These websites allow people who want content for their newsletters or blogs (generally for their own gain) to use your article, but only if they use the entirety of the article, which includes you author information, e-book name and website address. These articles get sent out potentially to thousands of people.

You want each article to be at least 300-500 words. For fiction authors you can do reviews on other books in your genre, you can do articles on events, news or trends in your genre or even a how to write for genre xyz or audience xyz. For a non-fiction author commenting on themes in your book, or giving away tips and information are the best way to go. The article needs to be similar to how you have written the content for your website, it needs to be very clear on what the benefit is for the reader and make sure that it is based on their interest. For non-fiction it needs practical information that can be used straight away by the reader. It should NOT be a sales pitch for your e-book. No one will use your article if it is, only the insane give free advertising for nothing. It needs to stand on its own as a helpful bit of information or entertainment; it has to deliver if you want people to use it for their newsletters.

If your information or tips are from your e-book it can also be a great way to advertise without obvious promotion. In the about author section you can note that the article was taken from the new e-book XYZ and for more information they should visit your website (don’t forget to put your website address there!!!). You about author section should be concise, giving your name, the genre and second pitch for your e-book and an invitation to check out your website for more information, or more enticingly, to check out your website for free samples.

All you need is for several newsletter ‘publishers’ to include your article in their newsletters for people to start visiting your site. If you find you just can’t do several in one sitting, break it up into manageable chunks and write one a week and you will get all the traffic you need without paying a cent.

One extra avenue for your articles is to submit them to Digg, where people can rate articles based on their content and entertainment value.

So time to check out of the funny farm and get to work!

TOMORROW: The Media Machine: Consider short stories as a way to rapidly increase your fan club.