"Turn Words Into Traffic"

By Jim and Dallas Edwards
Reviewed by Liz Monte

What if there was a way to advertise your website that had all the following features?

• It focuses exclusively on your target market.
• It can reach millions of internet users.
• It's extremely effective.
• It builds quality in-bound links to your site.
  
• IT'S COMPLETELY FREE? 

This is Article Marketing.  If you're not familiar with it, here's a quick overview: 

As you know, the Internet makes it very easy to publish magazines and send them out to subscribers in a flash.  Of course, we don't call them "magazines" anymore – they're "ezines."  (Pronounced ee-zeen.) 

Many ezines accept articles from freelance authors.  Usually, there's no payment involved – the publisher gets free valuable content, and the author gets free advertising for his or her website.  Depending on the circulation of the ezine, the author's article could be seen by any number of readers from a few hundred to tens of thousands. 

The article itself needs to be entirely educational.  Most publishers prohibit commercial messages.  However, at the end of the article, the author can include a "resource box."  This is where the advertisement goes.  The resource box can include the author's name and brief bio, a web address, and any other short pitch that can be crammed into five or six lines. 

So imagine the reader getting to the end of the article.  The article gives out some valuable and thought-provoking information but leaves the reader with a desire to know more.  Aha!  There at the end is a paragraph offering additional information with a link to your website.  One simple mouse click and the reader gets to learn more.  And you have a new visitor to your landing page. 

If you want to learn all the ins and outs of Article Marketing, I highly recommend an ebook, "Turn Words Into Traffic," by the father-and-son team, Jim and Dallas Edwards. 

Jim Edwards writes "The Net Reporter," a syndicated newspaper column helping "non-technical" people use the internet for fun and profit.  He's considered one of the top experts in making money online. 

His father, Dallas Edwards, has spent the last 40 years perfecting his writing skills and helping large and small companies communicate their messages more effectively. 

In "Turn Words Into Traffic," Jim and Dallas give a complete step-by-step guide to planning and writing an article and getting it published. They provide lots of real-world examples from their own experience, making the book very easy to read and understand.  These two guys definitely know what they're writing about! 

What if you can't write?

You may think you can't write.  But if you can talk and think, this book will teach you how to put your thoughts on paper – or on a computer screen.  The authors spend the first half of the book stepping you through the article-writing process from deciding on a topic, to organizing an outline, to fleshing out the article, to polishing the finished product. 

Remember, spelling and grammar can be fixed by your word processing program.  Your readers mainly want to know what valuable information is in your head and how it can help them become successful.