Share / Freeware Directories

http://download.cnet.com/

http://downloads.zdnet.com/

http://freshmeat.net/add-project/

http://www.serverfiles.com/

http://www.simplythebest.net/

http://www.absolutefreebies.com/best_freeware.html

http://www.jumbo.com/

http://www.webattack.com/

http://www.files32.com/

http://www.sharewarejunction.com/

http://www.softpile.com/

http://www.supershareware.com/

http://www.a1b2c3.com/free/

Software is heavily used online, and the growing numbers of open source software are also increasing as well.   The emergence of software pirating is also growing as well, but since people will go as far to steal software to get it for free how about just give them a simpler alternative for free?  Yes it does, and we can still monetize off free items online.  For example, you can give away a free eBook and monetize off the pdf document being given away by the affiliates links embedded in it correct?  Exactly, you can mimic a similar effect with a free application or software.

How software marketing works:

A corporation can provide a software application for a free trial. Once the individual downloads it they could either limit the amount of features that the free trial have or try and upsell the individual to purchasing the full version. This is kind of like a “free sample” if you will so that individuals can test a product before actually investing in it.  Or, an individual or company could give away all of the software for free and make up for the costs in the form of advertising within the application.

The second option could help your traffic go viral if enough people download it and recommend it to others. In addition, an individual could also require the visitor to opt into a newsletter so that they can build up a list of subscribers that the can communicate within the future. It will sure save you the hassle of having to worry about pirates and if enough people download your simple little application then you can monetize off it by inserting advertising inside the applications.  Similar to the effect of spyware or adware except your program won’t be malicious in any shape or form… or at least I hope notL.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Analyze your niche market and have a simple application made. You can outsource this task from an assortment of freelancer services such as elance, rentacoder, scriptlance, getafreelancer, etc. You can check popular software directories like download.com to get ideas of applications to make for your niche market. Just remember, not all applications have to be big and complex to help someone out. In addition, making an application that already have 1000 other similar applications will probably just wasted your time and capital. The best solution I can give you is to be creative when thinking of ways to help people.

Step Two: Once you have the application made then upload them to the top software sharing sites and track how many times an application has been downloaded. You can tell your programmer to code the application in such a way so that when it functions advertising can display in the application such as banner ad for example. The hardest part of this process is getting a decent application coded so that you can follow through with the marketing principles.

Wikis

Wikis

http://www.wetpaint.com/

http://pbwiki.com/

http://stikipad.com/

http://www.ottowiki.com

http://www.wikipedia.org/

http://www.wikispaces.com/

http://www.wikimatrix.org/

http://educationalwikis.wikispaces.com/Examples+of+educational+wikis

http://www.ikiw.org/

http://wiki.splitbrain.org

http://erfurtwiki.sourceforge.net/

http://www.flexwiki.com/

http://jspwiki.org/

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/MediaWiki

http://www.midgard-project.org/

http://www.mindquarry.com/

http://moinmoin.wikiwikiweb.de/

http://www.pmwiki.org/

http://www.screwturn.eu/

http://zwiki.org/FrontPage

Wikis, ah, this is another over looked medium for advertising. Come on marketers, whenever there is a site that ranks within the top 100 networks in the world then that technology can be exploited for ethical marketing practices. The technology I’m talking about right now is hosted wikis, and the site I’m talking about is Wikipedia. Great, but, of course Wikipedia have disabled the follow attribute which is their way to try and prevent spammers from editing popular article entries and slipping in their website urls. Ouch to those who think they are getting links form pages with high page rank. They may very well get traffic but this is usually short term if the website they linked to is blatantly for commercial purposes and doesn’t add value to the network.

Wikipedia is heavily moderated so if you are going to try and game the system without adding something of value to the network then forget it because that is why people like Wikipedia and that is because of the content. In addition, the content can be edited and added to by virtually anyone which makes it very “web 2.oish” (not sure if it’s a word) because of the high level of user interactivity. Ok, so, now that I’m finished talking about Wikipedia, let’s learn some simple ways that we can use a wiki to our own advantage.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: I would recommend joining a self hosted wiki like wet paint. If you start your own wiki site I’m not saying that it can’t do well because it very can. But, what I will say is that it could be costly getting all of the proper customizations that you may want for your network and also take a good chunk of time. I would recommend finding self hosted wikis that you can register at so that you can make a new wiki. Whenever you make a new wiki make sure to try and register a keyword rich url for seo purposes. Wikis could just be another tool for generating awareness to your main sites, similar to the fashion that blogs or even forums do.

Step Two: Once you registered a wiki start adding your old content to it and if the network allows you to join other wikis then do so and sometimes advertise your own wiki in there. It only makes marketing sense to do this if the other wikis are related to yours so that you can get people that are passionate about a subject manner to write about it as well. If you have ever been to a variety of online forums you will notice that whenever some people are passionate about a specific topic they write and write and write about it.

If you can get individuals to do this for your little small niche wiki then this could be any extra way to generate more traffic to your site.

Classified ads Networks

Classified ads Networks

http://www.classifiedads.com/

http://classifieds.yahoo.com/

http://www.usfreeads.com/

http://www.recycler.com/

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/

http://base.google.com/

http://expo.live.com/default.aspx

http://www.kijiji.com/

http://www.superads.com/

http://www.adtrader.co.uk/postcode_splash.php

http://www.lycos.com/

http://starbulletin.com/classifieds/

http://www.domesticsale.com/

http://www.oodle.com/

http://www.newsdirectory.com/

http://www.abyznewslinks.com/

There are possibly thousands of classified ads networks online similar to the fashion of article directories. Classified ads is an aging marketing technique but it is still effective if used properly, and that is the thing most of its users don’t, they practice what I call “wishful marketing” and that is they just post a random add and then expect to get thousands of visitors.  Yeah, you may hear that from your everyday sales letter but it is far from the truth of what really happens.  I didn’t include of the networks has follow attribute because how most classified ads networks work is that you post content and after an x amount of time the content will expire.  So, even though you could get temporary back links from a site with a high page rank like Craig list, it will be temporary.  In addition, what I like about classified ads sites is that it’s quick traffic and you can use it to test and track your ads quickly.

What’s pretty neat about classified ads networks is I like to classify them as a free source of “sales page” traffic.  The reason for this is most of them allows you to advertise your sales page or even squeeze page and measure your results without any penalties.  If you try doing that at social media sharing sites then your site will get labeled for spamming. However, with classified ads networks this is all just fine.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Find the appropriate channels to post your ad in! Believe it or no this is where a lot of marketers go wrong at.  For example, www.craigslist.com is the biggest classified ads network. However, where a lot of individuals go wrong at is by posting their offer in the wrong section. A lot of marketers will ask where should they post their eBook at and the answer is simple: “Post it where ever the individuals who are interested in your material will look.”  They complicate something that is really simple. So, if you have an information product dealing with “bad credit repair” then the best place to post it would be within the “financial” services section.

Step Two: Not all classified ads sites will have a category that ties into the theme of your site.

For example, if you have a site about “learning how to grow pickles” then I’m afraid there is not a section on craigslist that you can post an ad for, so you know what that means?  Cancel craigslist out as a free medium to advertise on because I’m not saying you can’t get traffic from it but the traffic that you get will just take up resources on your server.  Only use mediums that have established categories that you can easily plug your site into. Once you do that the traffic will be of a lot higher quality.

Step Three: Once you have found some classified ads networks that you can plug your site into, post your ads and record your results, test, improve ads, and then re-launch another campaign.

Photo Sharing Networks

Photo Sharing Networks

http://www.flickr.com/

http://www.photosite.com/

http://www.webshots.com/

http://www.smugmug.com/

http://www.fotki.com/us/

http://photobucket.com/

http://www.23hq.com/

http://www.picturetrail.com/

http://www.zoto.com/

http://www.tabblo.com/studio/

http://www.snapfish.com/

http://www.zooomr.com/

http://www.ringo.com/

http://www.picnik.com

Photo sharing networks are kind of parallel in its effect to physical photo albums in which an individual can store pictures they take. What happens is an individual uses a digital camera, takes a picture, and then tags and uploads it to an online photo-sharing network… similar to the process in which you upload a video online, just using different mediums. This is another marketing technique that marketers continue to overlook. The most popular photo sharing n site is Flickr, which is owned by Yahoo!

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: First thing first, if you have images that you have already uploaded then go back and optimize them with the keywords that you are targeting if you haven’t already.  This can be done by using the following code: <img src=”keywordofimagehere.gif” alt=”place keywords here” />.  This will output an image from your server that is named keywordofimagehere.gif and when the user put their cursor over the image it will output the alt text which in this case is “place keywords here.”

Step Two: If you have images that you own the copyright to then upload them to photo sharing networks and appropriately categorizes the images. For example, let’s say that you went to a marketing seminar and took pictures you can then upload the image to Flickr or any other popular photo-sharing network and appropriately describe it.  I find that by occasionally adding images to my blog entries I can make the reading experience more enjoyable for the reader. It’s probably a reason why children like picture books so much; an image can be worth a thousand words or maybe visitors at times

Press Release Networks

Press Release Networks

http://www.pr.com/

http://www.prleap.com/

http://www.newswiretoday.com/

http://www.pr9.net/

http://prbuzz.com/

http://www.1888pressrelease.com/

http://addpr.com/

http://www.clickpress.com/releases/index.shtml

http://ecommwire.com/

http://free-news-release.com/

http://free-press-release-center.info/

http://i-newswire.com/

http://prurgent.com/

http://pressabout.com/

http://pressmethod.com/

http://theopenpress.com/

http://www.prurgent.com/

http://www.prnewswire.com/

http://www.prfree.com/

http://www.pressreleasenetwork.com/index.html

http://www.marketwire.com/

http://www.webwire.com/

http://www.emediawire.com/

http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?front_door=true

From my research the list is a list of the top free press release distribution networks. Press releases are another one of those old but proven marketing strategies that work. How a press release works is simply an individual has a news story to share and then they distribute it through as many media outlets as they can. Publicity is a marketing factor that is heavily used offline. If a company can get their stories in a media that is heavily viewed then they are getting lots of free advertising. In addition, press releases can really help a website take off quickly depending on the theme of the site. If an individual just submits a press release that talks about their product then it probably won’t be getting that much mention in the media. However, if their story is newsworthy or have some type of angle to it than that could make the website take off really quick.

A popular example of that is the “million dollar homepage.” When I was doing an analysis behind the uncanny success of the site I realized that the only initial marketing he used to get the news about his site was in the form of a press release… the rest was just pure viral word of mouth. If a press release goes well it can then get picked up by several of other media outlets which can leave to interviews and stories offline and not to mention with some nice links from bloggers within your niche market as well.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Think of something newsworthy to write about your site. Can it plug into a current event? These types of stories will usually do well. Is it something that catches people’s attention and makes them wants to read it and possibly share it? You can brainstorm ideas before you actually submit them you know?  I like browsing www.digg.com and checking their FrontPage to get some ideas of angles to use for my stories.

Step Two: Write up about a 500-1000 word document describing your story. Press release is usually written from a third person point of view. Also, for seo purposes you can sprinkle in keywords that you are optimizing your site for.

Step Three: Register an account at some of the free press release distribution services and submit your story to them. Don’t submit the same story to the same press release outlet, but rotate the story between the different Medias.

Video Sharing Networks

Video Sharing Networks

http://video.search.yahoo.com

http://www.metacafe.com

http://www.youtube.com

http://www.videocodezone.com

http://soapbox.msn.com

http://crackle.com/index

http://www.dailymotion.com/us

http://blip.tv

http://www.motionbox.com

http://www.singingfool.com

http://www.uncutvideo.aol.com

http://revver.com

http://www.buzznet.com

http://www.vimeo.com

http://www.break.com

http://www.eyespot.com

http://www.flixya.com

http://www.gofish.com

http://jumpcut.com

http://www.kewego.com

http://www.livevideo.com

http://www.putfile.com

http://www.vidilife.com

http://www.zippyvideos.com

http://www.dropshots.com

http://www.castpost.com

http://www.clipshack.com

http://www.dovetail.tv

http://www.famster.com

http://www.sharkle.com

http://www.videowebtown.com

http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids

http://digg.com/videos

http://video.stumbleupon.com

http://video.tailrank.com

http://video.msn.com

http://www.friendster.com/video.php

http://www.fliqz.com

http://www.bebo.com/Tv.jsp

http://video.xanga.com

http://www.guba.com

http://www.vmix.com

http://www.filecow.com

http://video.google.com

Video sharing sites is a rapidly growing medium online. A lot of web users like to view content in the form of videos so this can be another easy way to get more free publicity. Let’s take a site like

YouTube  for example.  Whenever I submit a video I’m not really concerned about getting on the FrontPage of the network and generating one million views. You know why?

It is pretty darn difficult to do that without having an entertaining video. In addition, a lot of these videos will usually be trendy because it will have something to do with current events, that’s why

Staying up to date with them is a good idea.   Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of marketers think that marketing is all about getting higher numbers of visitors and that’s not really the case. If you want to monetize off your visitors then its about getting individuals that perform specific actions on your site, so here is a quick ‘how to’ on using video marketing to generate some relevant visitors to your site.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Search YouTube or any video sharing site of your preference. Search for keywords that are related to your site’s theme.

Step Two: Look at the top rankings videos within your niche market. Study the title, description of the video, and then the tags that the individual uses for the video.

Step Three: Convert some of your best article content into a video format that’s accepted into the networks like an .mpg file and then upload and properly categorize the videos.  It’s important to properly categorize your videos so that you will get people watching it that are interested about that subject matter. You will see a lot of videos that have crazy comments on them and that is because those videos are reaching a mass demographic audience and a lot of them are of a younger audience as well.

However, if you make your content more targeted then you should get more targeted viewers so make sure to specifically label your videos with the correct keywords. However, refer to step one before you do so because you want to do it with proven keywords in the network.

One way to do that is play with the search function of the network to look for related videos in your niche market. This is something simple that I refer to as “video optimization.”  In a similar fashion that an individual properly optimizes content on their site, make sure to apply this to your videos.

Podcast Networks

Podcast directories:

http://odeo.com/

http://odeo.com/business

http://odeo.com/internet

http://odeo.com/music

http://odeo.com/politics

http://odeo.com/science

http://odeo.com/spirituality

http://odeo.com/spirituality

http://odeo.com/technology

http://odeo.com/comedy

http://odeo.com/movies

http://odeo.com/news

http://odeo.com/productivity

http://odeo.com/sex

http://odeo.com/sports

http://odeo.com/television

http://digg.com/podcasts

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/arts

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/business

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/comedy

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/education

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/games_hobbies

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/gov_org

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/kids_family

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/health

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/music

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/news

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/science

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/sport

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/tech

http://digg.com/podcasts/view/tv_film

http://www.podcast.net/

http://www.podcastalley.com/

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcasts.html

http://www.podcastpickle.com/

http://www.podcastdirectory.com/

http://www.digitalpodcast.com/

http://www.podcastingnews.com/forum/links.php

http://libsyn.com/directory/

http://www.gigadial.net/public/

http://techpodcasts.com/

http://www.podfeed.net/

http://podcastdirectory.org/

http://www.podshow.com/

http://www.podomatic.com

Audio marketing is probably one of the most under rated marketing tools available online, and the funny thing is, if you have content that is already available then you can get started with your audio marketing campaign as soon as you desire.  When I was compiling my list I was looking for more of a web 2.0 style version for audio directories.

I wanted a network that I can submit audio to and it will instantly be added to the network. Well, there are not too many of those types of networks floating around on the net, but there are a lot of pod casting directories that you can submit audio to and wait for approval. The two top podcasting networks that I would recommend that you submit your audio content to, are odeo followed by digg’s audio service.  There are a lot of specific categories that digg allows an individual to submit audio content of in which I outlined so make sure to take advantage of that. What is funny is churning out new audio content is relatively a piece of cake if you have content available on the web.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Find old content of articles that you have floating out on the web. What you are going to do is simply breathe new life into those rusty articles that are losing flavor on the Internet.

Step Two: Once you have the content then simply record them into an audio file. You can do this for free with open source software known as Audacity.

Step Three: Once your audio is recorded, name the file something keyword rich and then upload it to the appropriate networks. You can also upload it to your server and make the file name keyword rich because believe it or not this can help with search engine rankings.  Then you can make a blog or article entry on your site and link to it.  Since Google “universal search” different forms of media are now rankings high in the search engines.  These include audio, video, and images–so the more forms of mediums you have the better.  In addition, if you already have content written in text, you can in essence  change it into the two other popular forms, video and audio, and give it a second run for its money.

Also, displaying the different forms of media of the same content won’t give your website any penalties from the search engines because the mediums are different.  You can display all three mediums at once to give your readers a better option to of what type of medium that they prefer to use most, and also to increase your online presence as well.

Social Networking

Social Networking and Publishing Platforms:

http://www.squidoo.com/

http://hubpages.com/

https://www.blogger.com/

http://www.xanga.com/

http://home.services.spaces.live.com/

http://www.hi5.com/

http://jaiku.com/

http://badoo.com/

http://www.livejournal.com/

http://www.tumblr.com/

http://www.gather.com/

http://www.spongefish.com/

http://twitter.com/

http://www.launchtags.com/

http://360.yahoo.com/

http://www.myspace.com/

http://www.hi5.com/

http://www.facebook.com/

www.orkut.com/

http://en.netlog.com/

http://www.tagged.com/

http://www.buzznet.com/

http://www.vox.com/

http://twitter.com/

http://www.tribe.net

http://www.searchles.com/

http://www.tumblr.com/

http://www.friendster.com/

http://hometown.aol.com/

http://www.bebo.com/

http://www.mybloglog.com/

http://www.profileheaven.com/

http://www.pownce.com/

http://www.searchles.com/

http://www.myblog.com/

http://my.opera.com/community/

http://grono.net/

http://www.imeem.com/

http://groups.msn.com/

http://groups.yahoo.com/

http://groups.google.com/

http://www.classmates.com/

http://en.netlog.com/

http://www.tagworld.com/

http://start.aimpages.com/

http://us.cyworld.com/

http://www.connectu.com/

http://www.pageflakes.com/

http://www.buzznet.com/

http://current.com/

http://www.wayn.com/

If you haven’t noticed, I have added some self-publishing services to this section.

The reason why I did this is because there weren’t that many valuable self-publishing services that I could collect so I added them in with the social networks.

Some social networks allows an individual to blog about whatever they feel like–whether it’s a rant, about their day, or just some other general miscellaneous topics and as a marketer we should take an advantage of that feature if the network enables it.

Quick start marketing campaign

Step One: Visit networks and register accounts.  The hardest part sometimes could be getting started and then following through.

Step Two: The main feature about social networking sites is building up your network of friends, and as marketers we all know the value of having friends that are interested in our products, services, or content of our sites. So, make use of the search function if a social network provides it.

What you can do is search the system and segment through user’s profiles and look for users that interests are compatible with the website you are marketing.  Once that is done add these users as friends and try to connect with them through your content.  Don’t aggressively push your products/services on them because most likely you will not be the first “marketer” to do this on them.  However, try to use smart marketing tactics and have them come to you.   Send them engaging content, interactive quizzes and polls related to Your site’s theme.

Step Three: Continue to build long lasting relationships most marketers don’t realize this but if used correctly social networks could be lucrative if you build friendly trusting relationships.  Adding a bunch of friends and spamming them could make you some quick cash but all it will be is just something quick and short lasting.  When you do things the right way you will build long lasting sustaining relationships.  Yes, having millions of friends is ok if your website theme is something general and can appeal to the masses, but if you have a product in a lucrative niche market then I would recommend Gradually adding friends who interests are closely compatible with the theme of your site.

One hundred friends that read every message of yours is a lot more lucrative then 1000 friends that don’t. In addition, if the social network allows you to post content then simply post snippets of your articles with a link back to the source, aka your site.  Also, most social networks will allow you to display a website if you have one so make sure to fill in this option and to make a profile that is descriptive and also keyword rich.  By doing this, if an individual has similar interests, as you then the system will show them within your network. In addition, if they are searching through profiles yours may stand out as well. Last, if you get a fair chance to display a link anywhere online, then I would Highly recommend that you take advantage of it and go for it?. By this I mean if the network allows you to add links to sites, content, etc.

Social Media

http://www.digg.com/

http://reddit.com

http://ma.gnolia.com/

http://www.startaid.com/

http://www.propeller.com/

http://del.icio.us/

http://www.technorati.com/

http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/

http://www.blinklist.com/

http://blogmarks.net/

http://www.furl.net/

http://www.diigo.com/

http://www.google.com/notebook

http://www.newsvine.com/

http://www.simpy.com/

http://sitebar.org/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://thoof.com

http://www.newsvine.com/

http://faves.com/home

http://www.sync2it.com/

http://cloudytags.com/

http://www.givealink.org/

http://www.kuro5hin.org/

http://www.fark.com/

http://slashdot.org/

http://www.librarything.com/

http://www.bloglines.com/

http://www.netvouz.com/

http://rawsugar.com/

http://www.spurl.net/

http://myjeeves.ask.com

http://www.mister-wong.com/

http://www.google.com/bookmarks

http://bookmarks.yahoo.com/

http://favorites.live.com/

http://www.listible.com/

http://www.tagtooga.com

http://www.blinkbits.com/

http://clipmarks.com/

http://www.boxxet.com/

http://www.gather.com/

http://iq.lycos.co.uk/

http://www.shoutwire.com/

http://wobblog.com/

http://multiply.com/

http://otavo.com/

http://www.searchles.com/

http://www.zimbio.com/

http://www.nowpublic.com/

http://www.gabbr.com/

http://www.jeteye.com/

http://www.43things.com/

www.citeulike.org/

http://www.wirefan.com/

http://segnalo.alice.it/

http://www.stylehive.com/

http://www.rollyo.com/

http://www.crowdfound.com/

http://www.uvouch.com/

http://www.listerlister.com/

http://wists.com/

http://www.mybloglog.com/

http://wagg.it/

http://socialogs.com/

http://www.clipclip.com/

I like to refer to social media marketing as article marketing 2.0? I feel that similar elements of article marketing still apply with just a twisted version on the change of technology.  For the past year I have worked hard testing several of social media networks and the results have been great.  To tell you advance, the type of content that works nicely on these types of networks are the type of stories that you hear in the news.

Press release stories and stories on the FrontPage of social media sharing sites generally go hand in hand. However, any informative piece of content will do well on these networks as well. Just submitting your content won’t really do much for your traffic, but submitting engaging and helpful content will.  By engaging I mean content posts that are informative but also have a personality to it.  Very few people like reading dull and boring content. It’s like listening to a monotone speaker giving a presentation… it fails to catch and hold your attention which will help visitors click away quickly.

A good way to find a unique combination of engaging and informative content is to look at published magazines within your niche market offline.  A lot of these writers write well, have excellent content, and also make the content fun to read. Add your own personally to it and don’t be shy to show it.

How these networks work

I didn’t put tutorials for every single one of these networks because

1) That would have insulted your intelligence and 2) it would take up a lot of time and make this product a whole bunch of fluff. Most web 2.0 networks in general work the same. First, they require you to register your profile at the network.  Two, they require that you verify your inquiry via the email address that you submitted.  Three, you log into the network and make use of the features and learn how to navigate it.

Most of these web 2.0 networks will vary slightly depending on the parameters of their features, but in essence all these networks will require you to go through the first three steps that I mentioned.  In order to use some, they may recommend that you download and install a toolbar so that you can tag and submit content from the World Wide Web at your convenience.  Some of these networks include stumble upon and furl.

Quick start marketing campaign

Step One: Find some of your best content floating around on the internet. Come on, don’t be lazy, this is your business we are talking about? Make sure that you have picked the best articles that you have ever written on a particular subject manner (all subjective to you of course or less you have some data from your past testing experience).

Step Two: Pick 3 networks today that you will submit your content to and register an account at these networks. I would recommend choosing the networks that have the lower alexa numbers and higher page rank numbers to start off with.

Step Three: After you registered for the network submit some of your content to the network. Most of these sites will require a few things before you are allowed to submit content and that is the url of where the story is located, the description of your content, title of your content, and also the tags or user defined keywords.  It is a good idea to make these variables keyword rich so that once it gets indexed in the search engines can refer you some targeted organic traffic.

Article Directories

http://www.ezinearticles.com/

http://www.goarticles.com/

http://www.webpronews.com

http://pubs.acs.org/hotartcl

http://searchwarp.com/

http://www.isnare.com/

http://www.articlecity.com/

http://www.articlealley.com

http://www.amazines.com

http://www.buzzle.com/

http://www.ideamarketers.com/

http://www.promotionworld.com/

http://www.articledashboard.com/

http://www.articlegeek.com

http://www.selfgrowth.com/

Article marketing is one of the most basic but yet effective free marketing methods out here today.  There are thousands of article directories out there wanting your articles submitted, but why waste your time when 95% of those networks will bring you a couple of random unique hits yearly, cover your content with their adverting, and pretty much do nothing for you?

I’m thinking you’re better off without them. Here are the top article directories according to my research.  Most of these networks include the follow attribute so that means Google will count them as a link.

However, the thing about content marketing in general is that you don’t want your only link juice to JUST come from the directories you submit to.  The more links you have the better but you just don’t want links from directories or web 2.0 networks.  You want links from other sites that are related to your theme. If those sites get a lot of traffic then that’s even better for you because you can take a cut of those networks assets, a double winner for you… lots of targeted unique traffic flowing your way.

Quick start marketing plan:

Step One: Always get the content indexed from your server first! This is just a theory of mines but I believe Google gives higher proximity to content that is first indexed in their system. The duplicate content myth is NOT really a MYTH. For example, if you have duplicate content coming from the same server then Google will punish your site for it by not showing some of the links in their system or will possibly de-index it.  However, the myth about copying content from other sites doesn’t have me convinced. If that was the case then sites that content got copied and indexed 100 times should be drowning in the dark green murky ocean of the Google search engine.  However, it’s clearly evident that a lot of sites are not and in fact swinging right on the top of that big green ocean.  However, one issue I have noticed with content marketing is that if I were to submit to an article to an article directory like ezine articles, and then wait for my content to be published, sometimes the article from ezine articles will rank higher than the same article I put on my site.  I believe that this has to do with some type of algorithm that Google has that gives proximity to sites in which content is reportedly indexed first at. So, to swim on the safe sides of water make sure that you put and index content from your site first if you do add the content to a site or blog.

Step Two: Define and then rotate keywords I prefer to edit my articles for every article directory that I submit to, and no this is not for duplicate content purposes as I previously

Explained my thoughts about this matter.  However, why I do it is so that I can rank for different keywords. I believe that a lot of webmasters should start doing this. They should collect at least 15 targeted keywords that they will optimize their site for. By targeted keywords I mean keywords that have an actual market for buyers because every keyword in itself is a market. Usually, targeted keywords are more of a long tail type which usually consists of two or more keywords and have less search volume as well.  The important spots to edit an article are at the title, the first couple of sentences in the paragraph, and especially the anchor text.

Article marketing is great because a webmaster will usually be able to input anchor text which looks something like this.  Search engines display high prominence to sites that have a lot of links in the form of descriptive anchor text, so keep that in the back of your mind when “seoing.”

Step Three: Make good use of SEO copywriting this is simple all this means is writing keyword relevant content. Don’t force keywords into the body of your content but do sprinkle them sparingly throughout the body of your content. It is also crucial that you place content in the key important spots on your website as indicated previously.