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If you have a talent for writing, (and you do not have to be a Shakespeare), writing articles in order to spread the word about your product or service, or even an affiliate link can be an excellent method of promoting your online business.

Make sure the articles give out information which is relevant to the specific niche you are in, and are not just a blatant advertisement for your business. Indeed you will find that some article directories will not let you put in any links in the body of your article. The proper place to do that is in the resource box at the bottom of the article. This link refers back to your promotional web page which is again relevant to the subject of your article. Google does not like an article on dog training, for instance, linking back to a web page on cookery.

Articles are submitted to a variety of article directories, some of which will automatically publish an article, while others require a human review before acceptance. Submission can be done manually, one at a time, through an article submission program, or by using a paid submission service. I prefer this last method, as I can submit to a whole lot more article directories, and submitting them one by one takes up far too much time for me, time which would be better spent on business promotion.

Article submission is fine in itself, but it can become much more effective when it is combined with the proper use of an autoresponder.

This method starts with you loading up your article in your autoresponder, and each article must have its own unique autoresponder address, so you will need to be with an autoresponder service which allows this. You will find one service which does in my resource box at the bottom.

The next thing is to make a comprehensive list of all your articles together with those addresses. Use a spreadsheet to do this, as you can add the article description and a brief summary of the contents (or anything else) in as many columns as you require.

Put this list into your autoresponder, again giving it its own special address. Then you just use this address as your link on your website, or in your ezine, or even in forums. This way you only have to have one address in your advertising, but this address allows access to all your other articles, all of it running on autopilot.

Before you use this technique, make sure you try it out by logging in to the address yourself. You want any mistakes you have made to be picked up by you, not your customers.

Load up your own email address, and then try every possible thing you can think of that other people may also try. In other words, test the system thoroughly before you let it loose on to the general public.

Remember to use the autoresponder manual. There may be extra features in there that you did not know about, and which could be useful. All this time spent testing and tracking will pay off in the long run, as autoresponders, used properly, are one of the most essential tools of the professional internet marketer. In fact there would be not one person making a full time living off the internet who does not have an autoresponder service, and a lot of them use the same one. So if you want to join the big time gurus, don't go with a free autoresponder - use these when you only have a small list, and are not really interested in hitting the big money. Spend the small monthly charge and get a professional autoresponder service - it will repay that monthly fee many times over.

Peter Phillips

About the author
Peter Phillips is an accountant and writer living in Canberra, Australia
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