Jim was working hard to grow his business. Long hours networking his rolodex, producing high quality products, and delivering exceptional service to his customers, but he was always just a little short at the end of the month. He needed more customers, and he needed them quickly.

Are you in this situation? Would you like more customers? Here are some very simple things you can do to get your message out to a larger number of potential customers.

Write A Message That Works
Stop trying to get customers one at a time – start getting them ten at a time. Reach a larger number of your potential customers by talking to them about topics they like, in a language they understand. No, I'm not suggesting you take up Spanish or Swahili, I mean that your marketing must use terminology that makes sense to the average, uninformed customer. Don't fill your marketing messages with buzzwords that only industry insiders can understand.

Become An Article Marketer
Write a few short (500-1000 word) articles on topics that capture the interest of your potential customers. Provide relevant and meaningful advice. Fill your article with substance, not advertising. Read it over and make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors. Don't fill it with hype and hyperbole. Pretend your article is going to be in Time Magazine or the business section of a major metropolitan newspaper.

Once you have your interesting and helpful article written, start submitting it around the web. Newsletter editors and publishers are always looking for content to fill their pages. As an article marketer, you can provide that content. In exchange, you get high-quality links to your site and a resource box to make an offer to the readers.

Stop begging webmasters for link exchanges. Quit submitting your URL to FFA sites. If you want better Google search positioning and Page Rank, start writing short, interesting articles.

But there's a trick.
Many publishers won't accept articles filled with HTML tags. On the other hand, *every* publisher will accept text-based articles, so submit your articles without HTML tags and you instantly extend your reach.

There's a Google trick too.
Everyone knows that Google loves content. Articles are spidered very quickly and can be found on Google in just a few days. Your article (with your link) on a popular page can drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website. Submitting your article to many publishers can create dozens (even hundreds) of links to your page – all counted by Google as good, quality links.

What many authors fail to consider is the fact that Google penalizes identical, keyword rich "anchor text" links. Their rationale is that "natural" links put up on sites will not be worded identically from site to site. With link manipulation comes Google penalties. Authors have complained that their links disappear from Google after a few weeks, even though the articles are still posted everywhere. This is something you want to avoid and there's an easy way around it.

Google DOES NOT penalize identical hyperlinks when that hyperlink text is a URL. They do not consider it link manipulation, because it's the web standard reference to an actual page.

So combine these two simple tricks and watch as your links are published on multiple websites and not punished by Google.

Increase the Number of Sites You Reach
Article submission is a tedious task. Finding the sites that want your article, creating a user account, logging in, copying and pasting your article according to each publisher's guidelines – it can take between 3-5 minutes per site. If you want your article to go out to 50 sites, be prepared to spend several long and boring hours in front of your computer.

But there's an easier way. Article submission can be automated. There is software you can buy and there are services to do the work for you. In my opinion, a service is the way to go.

With software, you have to manage the submission work based on a list in the product, which may or may not be updated occasionally. Article submission services such as www.articlemarketer.com are constantly interacting with publishers and editors online, and the list is constantly kept up to date.

The Article Marketer service also allows you to post your articles for distribution over time. You can post several articles at once and direct them to be distributed over the next several days or weeks. With software you have to physically sit at your computer and submit your articles on the day you want them distributed.

Software is expensive. Article Marketer offers free distribution, as well as a subscription that allows you to submit as many articles as you like for a very low price. For the price of some software, you can get many years worth of completely automated article distribution.

To recap:
Start talking to your prospects in their language.
Create interesting informative articles.
Use text based articles and URL hyperlinks to increase your Google exposure.
Sign up with an article distribution service to automate the tedious drudgework.
Get more customers – make more money.


About the author:
Chris Ellington gives effective and easy to implement marketing strategies to small business owners and home business entrepreneurs. His Simplified Selling program has been a hit with business owners and salespeople around the world. Get your free marketing tips at www.SimplifiedSelling.com