Ezine: Strut Your Stuff

By Merle
Posted Thursday, July 15, 2004

How to use what you know to write articles and then get them published in other ezines around the Net.

One thing that's certain about everyone is, we all are an expert on something. OK, maybe not an expert, but close enough for our purposes. The point I'm trying to make is if you can get your thoughts and ideas down on paper and then get others to publicise them, you've just cashed in one of the greatest forms of free publicity for your website.

There are thousands of ezines on the Net with editors hungry for content. By getting your articles published in newsletters around the Net, you give yourself credibility and visibility. These are good things. But how do you find publications who are looking for you? You contact them through email with a copy of your article (preferably under 500 words) and and awesome signature line with a link to your site. The amount of traffic this can generate is amazing.

But don't stop with just submitting them to the smaller ezines, there are many highly respected ones looking for content too. I recently had the honor of having one of my articles published in "Internet Day" which goes out to over 150,000 subscribers a day and received over 700 hits to my site in one day. See the article here (http://www.internetday.com/archives/050599.html) At the bottom you can find out how to submit your own articles.

By writing articles you establish yourself as an expert in your field and people will start to turn to you for help and advice. This "free help" often turns into a sale down the road. This is all part of establishing an identity on the Net. If you don't participate no one will know who you are. No presence, no hits, no sales, are you following me now?

So where do you find these editors who are looking for content? First you need to think about the types of people who are interested in what you have to write about (aka, target market). Then you need to subscribe or monitor to as many publications that cater to that specific type of audience. One newsletter directory that I belong to and use rather frequently to find ezines on a specific subject is "Lifestyles" a directory of ezines. For more information go to (http://www.lifestylespub.com/) For the price this is the best directory you'll find anywhere.For a small fee you can have access to over 600 newsletters, all broken down by subject, contact information, ad information and more. or try this (http://www.newsletteraccess.com/)

Once you start writing you'll find it addicting to see your name out there in print. Another tactic is to make your articles easy to retrieve from your site, usually by autoresponder, or by devoting a page of titles with links to them.

A great service I found a site on the Net where you can house your articles is Idea Marketers

(http://www.ideamarketers.com/library/profile.cfm?writerid=42&wherefrom=MS) (if the above url wraps on 2 lines, cut and paste on 1 to use) It's a database for writers articles and others can peruse them for possible publication in their ezines.

So now that you're all pumped up, get out your pencil and put on your thinking cap. In no time at all you too will be "Strutting your Stuff".

About the Author
Merle is an internet marketer, promotion consultant and ezine publisher. Visit her sites at (http://www.mcpromotions.com/), (http://www.merlesworld.com/) and (http;//www.ezineadauction.com/).