Top 7 Deadly Sins of Site Promotion with Online Articles

Writing articles is one of the most effective low-cost site promotion methods Out There. But to make the most of this popular tactic, you need to provide QUALITY content that stands out among thousands of competing articles.

Here are seven deadly sins that may keep your article from being published, or reduce its effectiveness as a promotion tool:

1. Submit a self-serving sales letter and call it an article. You CAN refer to your site/product/service in the article, but you MUST provide valuable information or commentary in ADDITION.

2. Submit every article you write to every ezine you can find. Different ezines have different "voices", as do different websites. Ignore that at your peril!

3. It's perfectly OK to write an article about a common problem that your product/service solves. But when you represent that YOUR product/service is the ONLY solution, you "turn off" anyone who KNOWS there are other solutions. (Autoresponder and hosting affiliates violate THIS one on
a regular basis. Usually in their OWN ezines because nobody else will publish this self-serving crap).

4. Submit to individual ezines without paying attention to their guidelines. I wrote this article with Top 7 Business in mind. That's why it makes 7 points instead of 6, 8, or 13.

5. Pack your article with misspelled words and poor grammar. After all, readers are eager pay for your insightful words of wisdom on Big Munny Seecruts.

6. Use big words and technical terms to show how smart you are. Footnotes and quotes are impressive too. Internet marketing ezines are NOT academic journals. Peer reviewed, maybe, but us internet peers are mostly ordinary folk.

7. Use a temporary email or url in the resource box, or use a HUGE or Clickbank affiliate link. Your article may be available for a long time. Temporary contact information is worthless. Long affilate URLs scream "amateur" and a lot of Clickbank affiliates will make a note of the product, then buy it with their OWN affiliate link to save a few bucks.

c. 2004 by Judy (Wogoman) Cox, chief freebie-gatherer and organizer at