Part 1 of our 21 part Series on Viral Traffic Generation.

Viral Traffic Generation – What is it anyway?

Viral marketing has become an increasingly discussed subject in the past few years. Many bloggers and webmasters are forever discussing the value of this technique to drive large amounts of traffic to your website. So, you may be asking yourself; “What is Viral Marketing and how can it help me?” Is it a proven technique which works effectively or just another passing blackhat fad?

In its simplest form, Viral Marketing is a technique which gets others to willing talk about and spread your information for you. People read your information or hear about your latest offering and begin to tell others. The message begins to spread from person to person in this manner like a “virus”. When this occurs, it is referred to as” Going Viral”.

This type of marketing relies mainly on word-of-mouth techniques. Someone sees your information and passes it on to another who does the same. That person tells a few of their friends who tell a few of their friends and so the cycle continues As this goes on, the number of people who hear about your information increases rapidly. The more individuals who read about your information or product, the more traffic you receive.
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Maybe you have started an article marketing campaign that will optimize your blog and raise your rank? Many online marketers have realized great value in the utilization of bum marketing to get beneficial information regarding their service or product into the hands of their potential customers. It’s a proven method which happens to be simple to do and often has nominal expenses required.

For anyone starting up your article promotion campaign and want to get the most benefit from each article you have to find ways to repurpose it. Using one article and sending it to an article directory site or publishing it in your blog is a great start, however if you’re stopping there you might be missing out on other methods you can use this same article to receive additional SEO juice.

Absolutely no business really wants to imagine they may be leaving money on the table in regards to marketing and advertising, so try out these tips to obtain the most bang for your article buck.

Redo and Publish

After you have formulated your initial article and either posted it on your blog or even submitted it to one of several BIG 10 article submission sites, you can reword the identical article and submit it to several other lower ranking syndication sites for further visibility. There are many good applications which make it simple to rewrite the first document yourself or perhaps you can easily outsource the job to a skilled independent copy writer.

Transform it into Online Video

Take your original article and turn it into Video for distribution to sites like Vimeo and Google Video. You can either video yourself relaying exactly the same details within the article or create a slideshow of this article content and record it with totally free screen capture software. You can get royalty free music files you can include to pump it up or use your own voice narration.

Build a Squidoo Lens

Squidoo is a great way to bring a lot more attention to your original article. Simply produce a Squidoo lens about the identical topic as the first article. You can either add a rewritten copy of the original write-up or simply use a few of their numerous modules to bring in pre-made content from other blogs or sites via RSS. You can even add video modules. Just be certain any content you add to your Squidoo lens relates to the subject of your article. Lastly, embed a link back to the article on your website or in the article directory site. This produces a sort of link line which ultimately leads back to your blog.

Turn Your Articles into A Totally free Report

Should you have many articles you have developed on a single topic, you can incorporate them into an e-book. Just simply create a table of contents which makes use of each article title as a section of the e-book, and then compile them in order. You may make a few minimal revisions to insure the flow of the articles makes sense and reads like a ebook rather than a series of articles. E-book covers can be bought via sites like Fiverr.com for $5 and can give a professional edge. You can then give the finished product away on your web site to help you build up your email list.

Articles take time to create or they be expensive for you to have them created.  In any event you are a bit of time or cash to get them done. You might as well get the most out of them by re-purposing them for additional SEO benefit.

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Article Marketing is still one of the most effective ways to promote your website at a very low cost. It is one of the few types of marketing which allows you to not only get noticed for specific keywords, but also lets you inform the reader about the specific targeted information surrounding those keywords.

This technique allows the website owner the ability to get their message in many directories to be viewed by millions of individuals and publishers. It also is effective in building backlinks to their site through these directories and the syndication of the articles.

Unlike writing for magazines and newspapers, writing for article marketing applies techniques which require less of an attention span from the reader.

This is a very direct way to drive traffic and rank, but how do you make your articles compelling enough to get noticed?

Unlike writing for magazines and newspapers, writing for article marketing applies techniques which require less of an attention span from the reader. Most articles are written to get a message across quickly and concisely, therefore, the general rule is to keep these types of articles between 350-700 words.

Many readers want to find an answer or resolution to a problem quickly and do not have time to read long winded articles while they are conducting research. It is important to always keep this in mind when writing for article marketing purposes.

It is important to know your target audience and write directly to them.

It is also critical to make the article easy to scan by the reader. Long introductions in this arena will kill your efforts. Your article should give a quick synopsis of the information very early on (usually the first or second sentence). Make good use of bullet points, titles, headings, and the like when creating your articles so that readers can pick out the areas they need quickly.

Stick to the quick facts about the topic and give a brief expansion on each. As an example, if you are writing about dog training, you will want to stick to the issues an owner may face, put them in a tight list, and then offer a quick solution to each (biting, barking, commands, etc). You can use each problem as a heading and then give 1-2 sentences on eradicating the behavior issues.

Though they will be kept short, your article must include persuasive wording and techniques.  Not in a salesy kind of way, more as an informative guide, which brings them through the article with factual information, and then ultimately leads them to an action item (your link).

Including quotes from experts within your article is a very helpful persuasion technique which lends credibility to your article and keeps the reader moving on to seek out more, similar factual information. Reading something which has content verified by an expert in the topic, which can then be confirmed by factual data, will establish certain beliefs among the reader and help you to gain authority.

By targeting a specific audience when you write, you can ensure the visitors that link through to your website will already be seeking out YOUR product or service.

Finally, it is important to know your target audience and write directly to them. Think of the individual who may be seeking out information on this topic. What questions would they have? What problems do they need solved? Would they need a quick solution or a more detailed brief?  And remember, not everyone will be interested in your particular article, but that’s ok. You only need to attract YOUR target audience. Afterall, the end goal is to get them back to your site to read about your services or products.

You want them seeking whatever it is you are selling before they ever reach your page. By targeting a specific audience when you write, you can ensure the visitors that link through to your website will already be seeking out YOUR product or service.

When writing articles for directories your target audience should always be your potential customers and publishers or webmasters who may be looking to put your particular article on their website. That’s it.

Writing great articles for the purpose of article marketing is not difficult once you understand the general principals here. If you are going to outsource your writing services, just make sure your content writer is well versed in them as well. It will prove for a very effective article marketing campaign.

Article Marketing is growing rapidly as one of the top ways to drive consistent targeted traffic to you site.

This week’s FREEBIE is from Internet Marketer, Mark Thompson. In his 49 page free report “Article Dominance” Mark uncovers many of the secrets to effective Article Marketing including:

• How to write great headlines.
• Ways to write an article in just 8 Minutes.
• Effective ways to use your Resource Box
• Understanding the role Google plays in all of this.

If you have been looking to Article Marketing to drive more traffic to your site or Blog then check out Mark’s free report today.