by Michael Werner
In the last couple of years, I've come across an amazing, no-cost, way to obtain great publicity for your company, Web site, or organization. And all it takes is a little elbow power (or a few bucks to hire a writer with same) and the information about where and how to get the notice.
Today there are over 300,000 online newsletters and electronic magazines (often called "ezines" for short) and the numbers grow daily. They cover virtually any topic you can think of, ranging from working at home to parenting to genealogy.
But here's the biggest secret of all: most of them rely on outside contributors for their information. In fact, many ezine publishers are starving for quality content. Consequently, they need experts (and you are an expert on something, aren't you?) to provide short articles, tips, and advice to their readers. And we're not talking major treatises or giant tomes here; most ezines publish articles as short as a paragraph or two.
Usually, you won't get paid a dime for your contribution. However, because the publication will run your byline (which includes your name, company, and address-either physical or cyber), you'll end up getting leads in the dozens or hundreds every time your article runs. That's dozens or hundreds of new visitors to your shop, Web site, or publication. For free.
So, just how do you go about finding ezines that want what you have to contribute? Well, you can find and approach individual publishers and offer your articles or tips. But that's often time-consuming, frustrating, and difficult. The single best approach is simply to post your contribution to one of the growing number of free article distribution services that are sprouting up across the Web. These services are frequented by ezine publishers looking for content and posting information about your article is the quickest way to get noticed.
Depending upon the individual service, you to post your article on their site, set up an autoresponder (a reply service that sends your article automatically to anyone who requests it; all without your intervention), or include the article or information about it in an online announcement service that they offer.
Here are my favorite places to announce your articles:
Business
Opportunities and Classifieds Online
Geared strictly for small and home office businesses, this
site features articles from business writers and professionals on related
topics. You can submit your articles at: http://www.boconline.com
CyberProsper web site.
Focuses on
Internet marketing. You can submit your article at: http://cyberprosper.com/submit.shtml If selected, your article will receive its own Web page and be linked to
the CyberProsper home page.
EzineArticles web site.
Provides
an ezine and a web site with archived and autoresponder-based articles. You can
find and submit articles to http://www.ezinearticles.com Selected articles will be
referenced in the daily or weekly version of the Ezinenewswire ezine, which you
can subscribe to at the http://www.ezinenewswire.com site.
Ezine Factory web site.
Publishers can download and reprint the articles stored at
this site free of charge. Authors can add articles to the site once they have
been accepted by the webmaster. For details, check the site at: http://home.intekom.co.za/qualitone/wwwboard/wwwboard.html
Free Content ezine.
This ezine lets authors submit article summaries and
publishers list needs. The editor prefers article summaries, but recent issues
of the ezine have included complete works. To subscribe, send
a blank e-mail to: free-content-subscribe@onelist.com
IdeaMarketers web site.
A very
thorough site. If you're looking for broad exposure, I'd make this one of your
first stops. You actually post your complete article to the site. http://www.ideamarketers.com
InfoZone web site.
This one offers a pretty thorough directory of articles
designed for both publishers and authors alike. All articles are stored online
at the InfoZone site and you can also link to your site. http://www.MakingProfit.com
IQLibrary web site.
This site is a new one and is owned by my company,
Intellectua.com. Our plan is to offer a broad range of professional, business,
how-to, computing, and Internet articles for publishers to use. However, we will
be highly selective in the authors that we include at the site. Please check
back frequently to see what we've added. http://www.IQlibrary.com
LRS
Marketing web site.
This site
offers several Internet marketing articles by some of the better known names in
the business. Check out the site at: http://www.lrsmarketing.com/Resources/free_articles.htm You
can submit articles by sending them to: freearticle@lrsmarketing.com
MediaPeak web site.
Provides free
content to over 2,000 online publishers. The content is distributed to
publishers via an email service, to which you can subscribe by sending a blank
e-mail to: e-wire-on@mail-list.com Submit
complete articles and up to four-line tag lines to either: mediapeak@mindspring.com or submitnews@aol.com Articles are archived at the
the following web site: http://www.mediapeak.com The web site
also has a content exchange section where publishers announce their needs.
PublishInYours ezine.
Designed primarily for you to post complete
articles. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to:
publishinyours@onelist.com
Web-Source web site.
You can submit your article reference, as long as it's in an autoresponder,
to the web site at the following: http://www.web-source.net/links/Articles_For_Publication/ You can also subscribe to and submit articles to the companion ezine, the
"Writer and Publisher Connection," by sending a blank e-mail to: article_announce-subscribe@egroups.com
WriteBusiness web
site.
In the "Articles Reprint" section. http://www.writebusiness.com
Writers & Publishers Online ezine.
If you're a publisher with article needs, or an
author with articles you want to distribute to online publications, you can send
a summary of your needs to: submit@list-content.com To subscribe to this excellent monthly
publication, send a blank e-mail to join-wpo@list-content.com I suggest subscribing
first to get a feel for a style of the publication and the format of your
submissions.
Michael Werner is the former President and founder of two-time INC. 500 company, InfoSource, Inc. He is currently the CEO of Intellectua.com, a publisher of how-to, business, computing, and Internet e-books and tools. You can subscribe to the company's award-winning, all original-content ezine, The DirtSmart Netpreneur, weekly news and tools for the small enterprise and home-based business webmaster. Subscribe at: http://www.dirtsmart.com/cgi-bin/sub.cgi?aaa
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