Do you realize that first quarter is gone? Did you achieve your goals for article writing? If not, it’s time to get smart with article distribution. How do we do that, though? Let’s take a look.

First of all, it’s a good idea to implement an overall action plan for your writing. Write down your goals for 2nd quarter, if you haven’t already done so. You don’t want to lose any more time than you already have. Then get busy writing.

Once a virtual assistant has the articles written, what is the best way to distribute them far and wide on the Internet. My recommendation would be to use a proven model for your article distribution. This model should be comprehensive, as well as being easy to use. The one that I’ve recently read about that I really like is the SmartDistribution PlatformTM that has been developed by Distribute Your Articles (DYA).

DYA has developed a model that incorporates all the finer points of ensuring that virtual assistants get smart with article distribution. Below I’m going to break it down for you.

To Spin or Not To Spin

Now before you bring up that I said before that spinning was not a good thing to do, I’ve since found out that spinning can actually have its uses — if you do it the right way. If you use the SmartDistribution Platform™, then you will have just the tool you need to spin your articles effectively. The beauty of SmartSpin™ is that you make the decision on whether to use it or not, depending on how comfortable you are with it. You hold the power to spin or not to spin.

Preparation Tools

There are many things we should do to make sure we not only get smart with article distribution, but also stay smart. One way we can do that is by careful preparation. Now DYA provides resources to you to do this in three different ways:

1) SmartFlow™ – When do you want your content to be distributed?

2) SmartCheck™ – It never hurts to be extra careful that your content is fit for publishing. Have it checked against a series of ad/spam filters, format checkers, link tests, and thin-content detectors.

3) SmartMatch™ – Have your content compared against the overwhelming sea of content out there on the Internet and evaluated for relevancy.

Distribution and Reporting

What wouldn’t we all give to have our articles show up as a feature article on well-known sites. Don’t think it’s possible? I can attest that it is possible with SmartFlow™. This happens with continuity in bite-size morsels – a little bit at a time.

But wait; what good is all this if a virtual assistant can’t determine the success rate of their article campaigns? Distribute Your Articles has taken care of that, as well. Called SmartTrack™, VAs can get all the information they need to know where the articles have been distributed, as well as when remaining articles are still left in the queue awaiting distribution.

Good Matches Yield Superior Results

SmartMatch™ is the very essence of SmartDistribution. Beyond a simple article marketing system, SmartMatch™ organizes your content into precise, individually- owned niche sites over time. With Google and other search engines tightening up their relevance requirements, it only makes sense to include this into your arsenal of article-writing tools.

Good article distribution can drive traffic to your website or blog site. Now more than ever, virtual assistants need to get smart with article distribution and implement a well-thought-out plan of action to get the best results. This process within this article is just one way. Whatever method you use, you need to start now. What are you waiting for?

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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Improve your chances of having your articles receive the recognition they deserve. Maximize!

An article writer has many tricks of the trade that they use to entice their readers into reading their good quality content. But do you know where they get their research from?

While we wish it were so, we’re not all able to have the gift of gab and be able to write an article or blog post on a whisper of a prayer and have it sound right. Most writers need to do some degree of research before sitting down and putting good quality content to a word processor or text editor. So here are 4 sources for research I use as an article writer.

Wikipedia

I consider Wikipedia to be my best friend. You see, I usually start with this resource first. Why? Wikipedia is my stepping stone to gain an understanding on a particular subject. It’s never my plan to rely wholly on this online encyclopedia. I can still remember my English teacher telling me never, ever use just one resource when writing. You need to make sure that your facts are accurate.

From within a particular Wiki page, I can usually gain valuable insight into locations, meaning, history and trends, all wrapped into one neat little package. After I pick and choose the information that I want to use for my notes, then I’m ready to proceed to another source to either back up or argue the points I might wish to emphasize in my article. But hmmm, what’s a good direction to go from here? Oh, I know. I can go to the web search engines.

Web Search Engines

You’re probably all familiar with the most familiar web search engine of Google, but did you know that there can be lots? For example, just from doing research for this article, I found a brand new site How Many Are There. To my amazement, just written and posted today was an article that seemed to be very apropos for what I’m writing to you about now. The name of the article is How Many Search Engines Are There? According to this article, there are over 30! Listed among them were some of my old familiar friends amongst a wide array of new ones that I had never heard of.

Since it’s never wise to rely just on one source of information, I will be checking out other sources on the Internet as well to make sure that I’m not printing information that will misguide my readers. Remember, I alluded to the fact that I want to write good quality content.

YouTube

YouTube is a resource that I have just started using. While I’ve noticed that not all videos are good quality, I have found some that can be used to substantiate a ‘how to’ process to make it easier for me to explain the different steps to my readers. A word of caution I might add here is Do Not Plagiarize. Give credit where credit is due.

Social Media Sites

Now some of you might be saying, “I can’t believe you are going to recommend using social media as resources for information. Let me explain. Especially with the social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can gain some valuable insight into corporate profiles, websites, missions and goals and new quality content that they are posting to their pages. In addition, you can get a sense of upcoming events that might be useful for what you are writing on.

Now I’m not suggesting that everyone use the same 4 sources of information for research in order to write good quality content. What I am saying is that these resources work for me and give me a sense of organization that I can use for gaining good quality information that I can write about. After all, I really don’t know everything there is to know about every subject. Everyone can use a little help somewhere.
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

A new SmartDistribution Model is here! It’s now possible to increase your brand visibility, increase SEO and increase the potential for higher sales and sign ups through your website. Check it out now!

Virtual Assistants can find themselves in a bind and not be able to find the time for writing articles due to their clients’ demand on the VA’s time. Do you know any other ways to post quality content to the Web? I do. Let’s check it out.

I’m sure you have all heard me lament that I just don’t have the time to write articles anymore. You see, as a virtual assistant, my clients are my priority. With working from dawn to late in the evenings, there just aren’t extra minutes in the day for personal writing. I had to find 3 things I can do to post quality content to the Web and do it fast!

Share

Did you just read an article on the Web and really, really like it and you think your clients or colleagues might enjoy it? Share it through one of the popular bookmarking and sharing services that you can find on the Internet. There are some that you can get a share button to add to your popular Web browsers like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari. Reading an article pertaining to your niche? Share it!

Talk it up in social media

Okay, so maybe you don’t have a lot of time to write an article. But, if you can take five minutes out of your day, you can post to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or some of your other favorite social networking sites. Here are a couple of benefits for doing that:

1. Increase your brand image:

It stands to reason that the more you post, the more chances you will have of having your logo, photo, business, etc. visible in the eyes of the public. Seeing can lead to their talking YOU up (watch out; it can work in reverse also) and spreading their feedback.

2. Become more widely known as an expert in your field

If you continuously offer valuable input on Facebook Pages or to your social media in response to questions pertaining to your niche, the chances are very strong that they will look to you to solve their needs in the future. You will gradually be recognized as a go to person for help in solving issues.

Offer input in forums

In my opinion virtual assistants or anyone that has a niche that they write about should have at least one forum that they are a member of. Why? Here are just three benefits of becoming part of a niche forum:

• Sharing opportunities

After all, if you like horseback riding (yup, that’s me), then you want to be able to talk with other people that have the same interests and get new content for writing blog posts or articles when you get more time.

• Brainstorming opportunities

If you have an idea, you can bounce that idea of another member or even all members of the forum and ask for advice on what the members think. It’s a great way to receive, give, exchange, recommend (I’m sure there are more words I could think of to describe this if I thought about it, but let’s go on.)

• Networking opportunities – The more people you know and like you and hear of your virtual assistant services, the more they will spread the word to their business associates. Who knows? You could gain some new clients yourself in the process as their business associates come to you for services you offer.

A virtual assistant has to be alert to new opportunities to take advantage of managing their time. There are several ways you can post quality content to the Web, even though you may not be actively writing articles or blog posting. Some of those methods can take as little as five minutes. Good luck!
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants, the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

A new SmartDistribution Model is here! It’s now possible to increase your brand visibility, increase SEO and increase the potential for higher sales and sign ups through your website. Check it out now!

Everyone has been talking about it. Since Google changed their algorithm, there’s been a lot of concern whether or not article writers and virtual assistants should stay away from writing good wholesome articles altogether.

So what is Google’s purpose?

Google is intent on improving ranking for article writers. What will happen is that quality should take a big step up. I’m sure you’ve noticed trying to search in your favorite search engine for a term and getting very low-quality articles. Some of them don’t even pertain to the search keyword(s) you typed in. Google believes that this is just the start and readily admit that new updates will be coming down the pipeline that should improve quality even more.

What Is a Content Farm?

According to Wikipedia, a content farm as it relates to the World Wide Web “is used to describe a company that employs large numbers of often freelance writers to generate large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines. Their main goal is to generate advertising revenue through attracting reader page views.” Unfortunately, many of these content farms can promote articles of low quality due to excessive spinning or poor writing abilities.

How will this affect article content distribution sites?

Places like Distribute Your Articles (DYA) believe that content farms are in trouble. DYA has always encouraged their members to always submit original content. Their coaches are put through an extensive training program so they are comfortable recognizing errors that can cause an article to be rejected by publishers and site owners. Included in the training is how to correctly apply Article Alchemy™ technology. The end result is that the article writer can rest assured that their articles have been intensively reviewed to make sure that high quality is maintained.

Other content distribution places are raising the bars in their review process to ensure that they are not penalized by Google with a low rating. This will include places like EzineArticles who has recently announced several changes they have implemented to improve their ranking. One of the biggest changes was to increase the minimum length of articles from 300 to 400.

So what is my strategy going to be for me, as well as my clients? I will follow the course of DYA and recommend to my clients that we only submit original content to multiple sites, depending on the client’s memberships. However, my advice to them will also be to blog, and post their articles on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Do I believe that Virtual Assistants (VAs) should be concerned with Google’s new algorithm? I would more say that VAs should become aware but not necessarily concerned. So, for me, that means business as usual. What do you think?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. Borlok Virtual Assistants is the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Market far and wide and use the Internet to promote your products and services.

The number one goal is probably to make a profit, right? How do you do that though? How do you market your products and services far and wide on the Web and beyond? There are multiple ways to do this, but let’s look at just a few.

1) Talk up your products and services

Now this can be done in a wide variety of ways, both on and off the Web. You talk to someone every day. You have a prime opportunity to talk up what you do or sell by speaking with your friends, family, and customers. Maximize your opportunity by handing out business cards whenever you get a chance. Now whether you do it over the Internet or verbally is up to you. You can market your products and services by networking.

2) Socialize online in the social networks

Social networks are springing up everywhere these days. You know about the popular ones like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, but you don’t want to leave out socializing on forums, live chats, or other individual’s blogs in your niche. Remember what you really want to do here — market far and wide on the Web and beyond.

3) Write frequently and use multiple methods

a. Articles

There are many different ways you can write to spread the word about what your small business does. Writing articles can be a very effective way to do this. To make it even more effective, you will want to have your articles published and spread across the Internet like wildfire. One way to do this is through the use of article distribution companies. One such company that is making its mark and moving up quickly in page rank is Distribute Your Articles. Another possibility is Content Crooner. They each have different styles for disseminating your articles on the Web and beyond, but they each have gained monumental success. Distribute Your Articles has a novel approach of article syndication where they will not only mass distribute your articles to article directories, they will also include distribution to niche content sites and live posting, which creates many backlinks to your website. Content Crooner on the other hand proclaims to have wider distribution and better search engine positioning that maximizes your potential for backlinks, and they do this all through the utilization of nine key words as their guiding principles that anyone can implement in their business.

b. Press Releases

A virtual assistant can capitalize any time they add new services, new products, add upgrades — there are lots of different ways that you can let people know what’s happening by writing a press release anytime a noteworthy event takes place within your small business. Just like articles, they can be submitted to multiple press release sites out there – a lot of sites will allow you to submit them for free. Press Releases can be sent to editors at newspapers, magazines, radio stations, television stations — hmmm, are you beginning to see the possibilities here?

4) Advertise your products and services far and wide

According to Wikipedia, “advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services…Advertising can also serve to communicate an idea to a large number of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action.” What are some ways that you can do this? Take a look a just some of the possibilities:

* Banners
* Popups
* Emails
* Newsletters
* Classifieds

You do not have to pay a fortune to advertise. There are many methods widely established that will fit your budget and allow you to increase the visibility of your VA business.

A virtual assistant needs to be creative these days on how to make a profit while marketing products and services on the Web and beyond. This can be done economically and with a variety of methods. Some of the methods we looked at were to talk, socialize, write, and advertise. A VA needs to almost gain the gift of gab by talking about their small business whenever possible such as with friends, family, and customers, and sometimes, even competitors. Utilizing social networking will allow a VA to further their visibility, as will writing and distributing articles and press releases. Last but not least, a virtual assistant can ensure they will become successful in marketing their products and services widely by advertising. Shouldn’t you get started?
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Pam Lokker is a skillful writer and proficient virtual assistant. She is co-owner of Borlok Virtual Assistants (Borlok VA), the place to get global expert VA services with quality and on-time delivery.

Read Here to learn how to provide your customers with comprehensive customer service!

There are quite a few article distribution sites out there that will allow you to submit your articles, and they will send your articles out wide and far. What are some questions you should ask yourself prior to signing up and entrusting your valuable written content to them?

Who will your articles be sent to?

One of the first things you want to know is what type of a publisher list they have. Do they have many, many publishers that they will send your articles out to, or just a few? Do their publishers have good Alexa or Google pagerank? It would be wise to check out some of the sites to ensure your articles will be sent to reputable, well-known companies.

What type of membership plans do they have?

Prior to becoming a member of an article distribution company, do a little homework and see what type of memberships or subscription plans they have. Do they have free memberships? If so, what type of benefits does a free membership entail you? Be sure to read the terms of agreement to see how they will bill you if you have to pay for a subscription. Many of them will use a specific payment processor, and the billing will be on recurring billing. Be sure you understand the terms of agreement; then print it and keep it.

What kind of distribution plan do they have?

Are your articles going to be distributed for a long time, or short spurts? Does the company you decide on allow your articles to be sent to new publishers as they sign on, or are they going to be sent to a static, non-changing list? The ideal solution would be to have your content go out to new publishers and content site owners as they sign up.

Will your articles be reviewed prior to being sent out?

Should you be fortunate enough to find a website that has live human review of articles once you submit them, I highly recommend utilizing this valuable feature. A major disadvantage of trying to manually submit articles to a wide variety of article submission places is trying to keep all of their requirements and guidelines straight in your head. A company that has reviewers spot check your articles for you will know all the guidelines and be able to give you professional feedback on how to improve your articles so they speed through the review process.

Can you schedule your articles to be sent out at a specific time?

Wouldn’t it be a blessing if you could write and submit your articles ahead of time and then be able to schedule their distribution for a certain day? There are content distribution places out there that will allow you to do this. Check this option out; it’s well worth being able to advance schedule.

Whatever website you decide to go with, make sure you do your homework in checking out the company with BBB and other consumer sites that will rate companies based on their service level, integrity, and other measures prior to making that all important leap, especially if you are going to get a paid subscription.

Is there a content distribution marketing company that I use that I would recommend? Yes, I personally use Content Crooner, and am very happy with them. They have excellent customer service, economical paid subscriptions, an extensive distribution list of publishers, and a knowledgeable review staff. Don’t just take my word for it, however. Do your own research and feel comfortable with your decision.