How to Promote Your Website by Writing Free Articles
by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, E-Commerce Consultant

Looking for a way to promote your website at little or no cost? One approach is to write articles about a subject in which you have expertise, and then distribute these articles for free publication on other websites and in e-zines, with the stipulation that your brief bio and a link to your site remain intact.
If your articles are helpful, they'll be picked up by lots of websites and e-mail newsletter publishers. Not only will your article bring lots of immediate traffic to your website from e-zine readers, it's likely that your article will be permanently archived among newsletter back issues, so this will begin to multiply permanent links to your site. Search engines, which evaluate incoming links to your site, will observe a boost in your site's "popularity," and are likely to rank you higher because you are popular.
Viral Marketing Strategy
Writing free newsletters is a viral marketing approach. For viral marketing to work, you need several elements, which include: (1) a communication which carries your marketing message that is interesting, readable, or cute so that others want to share it, (2) a means to distribute your marketing message using others' networks of contacts or subscribers, and, (3) preferably, someone else's resources (e-mail listservers, printing presses, distribution system) used to distribute your marketing message.
While only a few viral marketing projects really take off and grow geometrically, writing free articles for newsletters can get your name out through scores of newsletters to thousands of readers for little or no expenditure of money -- only your time.
Establish You as an Authority
Several years ago, as I was launching my weekly Q&A e-zine Doctor Ebiz (www.doctorebiz.com), I examined multiple strategies to boost my subscriptions. As part of that campaign, I wrote an article entitled "The Six Simple Principles of Viral Marketing" (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles.htm), published it in Web Marketing Today, and invited my readers to post copies on their site at no charge. You can still use it on your site, too, if you like -- just use a clean copy (www.wilsonweb.com/wmt5/viral-principles-clean.htm). (Incidentally, my articles are usually NOT free to be hosted on other sites, but I decided to make a one-time exception as an experiment.) Many people did post the article on their website.
Some time later I got a phone call from across the country. When I picked up the phone, the caller asked, "Is this the King of Viral Marketing?" I laughed and said no, that I had just written some articles about it. "I've been searching all over the Internet for information about viral marketing," he explained, "and everywhere I turn, I find you. You must be the King."
I was flattered, but would rather assign that title to Seth Godin, author of Unleashing the Idea Virus, or Michel Fortin, the SuccessDoctor. Nevertheless, it helped me understand the immense power of distributing free articles.
When your article appears in someone's ezine or is hosted on someone's site, you are looked to as an authority on your subject. Links to your site now become much more valuable. Instead of just casual clicking, people now come to your site already believing in your credibility. They are much more ready to make a purchase of your goods and services than if they arrived cold from a search engine link.
What Kind of Articles to Write
First, let me tell you what kinds of articles NOT to write. Don't be overly general or full of hype, such as "Ten Ways to Become a Success." Instead, be specific. I mentioned Dr. Michel Fortin above. In addition to teaching marketing at Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario, Dr. Fortin writes high-quality sales copy for direct response campaigns -- for websites, e-mail marketing, as well as direct mail (www.wilsonweb.com/go/to.cgi?l=fortin). He gets nearly all his leads by writing one free article each month and submitting that to hundreds of e-zines.
Dr. Fortin suggests highly focused rather than general articles. "Titles with a 'how to' work very well," he says. "Very specific headlines work best, including articles that promise a unique explanation of what the content means -- the 7 keys, the 3 steps, the 4 types of headlines, etc." Some of his recent titles include:
" How to Write Compelling, Carrot-Wielding Copy!
" Create Headlines That Pull, Persuade and Propel!
" Boost Your Conversion Rate In Three Easy Steps
As for writing style, provide plenty of well-organized solid information but write in a friendly, chatty style, the kind of tone you'd adopt when explaining your topic to a person sitting across the table, having a cup of coffee with you. Just be aware that "chatty" doesn't mean "rambling" or "sloppy." The best articles are tightly organized and written, but easy to read. Dr. Fortin suggests, "Be as educational as possible without being overtly promotional," since the better newsletters will omit articles that contain promotional content.
If you're writing-challenged, perhaps you can get one of your staff to ghostwrite for you. Another source of help might be a local writer who knows how to communicate on the web. She might interview you and then organize and ghostwrite an article for you relatively inexpensively.
How to Submit Your Articles
Once you've written the article, you'll be looking for places to submit it. The best places to have your articles appear are in very focused e-zines and websites. Fortin says, "Highly-niched e-zines bring very responsive traffic, while general e-zines drive traffic that consists mainly of 'tire-kickers.'"
In a sidebar: "10 Top Sources Where You Can Submit Free Articles and Find Free Content," Web Marketing Today, 11/5/02, I've indicated a number of places where you can submit articles. http://www.wilsonweb.com/wmt8/articles_sources.htm
Another approach to article submission sites is to develop your own list of e-zines in your industry that seem to reprint articles from outside authors. Let's say you sell collectible teddy bears. Try searching Google under -- "teddy bear collector" e-zine. Put quotes around phrases that you'd like to appear exactly in the word order you specify. For this search, I came up with listings in The Ezine Directory (www.ezine-dir.com), The Teddy Bear News, the "Collectible Section" for "Bears and All Their Buddies" at About.com which links to articles, and many others. You'll need to research the e-zine to make sure they're still publishing new issues and take free article submissions. You can determine this by studying online copies of the e-zine or sending an e-mail to the editor.
Once you've developed a list of editors who accept submissions, then e-mail your newest article to them each time you write a new one. If you're uncertain how to proceed, consider hiring a publicist such as Ann Marie Baugh of Write-Promotion.com (www.write-promotion.com) who can submit your article to hundreds of appropriate e-zines.
Post Your Free Articles on Your Own Website
Don't forget to post your free articles on your own website, too. These articles will help attract search engine traffic to your site. They also provide an easy place where e-zine editors can look for content.
Dr. Fortin told me that he has incorporated in his "free articles" webpage a free service from ChangeDetection.com (http://www.changedetection.com). A snippet of code allows visitors to sign up to be notified by e-mail anytime content on that page changes. "When I post a new article to my article.html page," says Fortin, "an e-mail goes to those who have subscribed to the ChangeDetection service." He receives 200 to 300 visitors from this source whenever he posts an article -- both from article readers seeking to learn as well as newsletter publishers looking for content.
Syndicating Articles to Other Sites
For several years I've been syndicating content from my weekly Doctor Ebiz column (www.wilsonweb.com/syndicate) on more than 400 websites worldwide. The advantage of this type of free article distribution is that I can distribute up-to-date content to hundreds of sites, each including a special form that enables readers to subscribe to my newsletter directly. My purpose here is to collect newsletter subscriptions. The downside is that search engines don't index these pages. At least 50 sites, for example, have requested permission to syndicate my popular article "The Web Marketing Checklist," but all search engines see is a bit of JavaScript, such as <script language="JavaScript" src="http://www.wilsonweb.com/cgi-bin/msg/MSG.cgi?web"> </script> and most search engines don't index that. I've been very pleased, however, with the syndication tool I use -- Master Syndicator by William Bontrager (http://wilsonweb.com/go/to.cgi?l=syndicator).

Writing free articles is an important way to promote your site widely. If you can write articles and find e-zines looking for articles in your field, it's a winning strategy for you. Dr. Fortin concludes, "This has been my biggest promotional tactic. I can bid on PPC keywords, but none provide me with as good business prospects as I receive through my free articles."