Article Writers Australia helps e-tailers and ecommerce site owners to optimize their website content be it with web page text, articles, blog posts or improved product descriptions. Our clients have one thing in common – they are all keen to boost traffic to their sites. Do you have knowledge or services that can help them improve their traffic and conversions?

The Internet is an amazing and ever-changing place and it’s hard for most of us to keep up or to grasp all of the different tools available. Share a little of your specific expertise with our visitors by submitting an informative guest post for this blog. If your post is accepted we’ll provide a link from the post to your site so our visitors can check out your services. Make it a great post and you might just pick up a client or two!

POST GUIDELINES

- you have to give to receive: the post should be informative and useful rather than just marketing hype. Ideally it will explain some concepts, offer new ideas or tips, or provide information on emerging methods or trends in online marketing.

- it should be 200-300 words in length.

- provide an image to go with your post.

- provide the URL you’d like us to link to – but no tacky sales pages please!

- yes you can name yourself and your business and do a little self promotion – just don’t go overboard.

You’re welcome to email us with any questions you have before submitting a post for review.

Despite that, the search engines have found the new shopping cart site and the traffic to the site is already quite healthy. The first orders came in just after Christmas. Having not looked at our site analytics during the hectic move and Christmas period I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we’re already on page 1 for our keyword PLR Articles and are listed 1st in Australia for PLR Articles. Considering the site is only weeks old, I can’t be anything but happy about that!

One of resolutions for the New Year involved SEO for this site. We’ve taken the step of engagingthe services of an SEO consultant to work with us over an extended period. I hope to learn a lot during that time and as I find out useful information, I’ll pass it along via our new newsletter (another New Year’s resolution).

As for the Magicdust shopping cart – it’s working well, it’s easy to use and so far, I can’t fault their support.

All is still going well with our shopping cart experience, although getting our content onto the site is taking time – but that’s our fault! I had this fabulous plan to write up at least 5 article packs a week myself so that we’d have plenty of article packs in different categories by the time we went live. Then we became quite busy with large orders for unique articles and blog posts and that plan went out the window, as plans often tend to do!

The Magicdust support is quite good so far. One support request was missed but responded to immediately when I pointed that out. Importantly, the support team are friendly and helpful. I’m sure I’m not alone in having experienced some woeful support from various Internet related organisations. You know the ones I’m talking about – where in response to your support ticket you receive an almost unintelligible reply that doesn’t come close to answering your question or solving the problem; so you send another one, and point out that they seem to be addressing a different question, re-state the original question, and receive another unintelligible and irrelevant response. If you’re impatient like me, the third email gets a little terse and re-states the problem yet again – and when the response is just as unintelligible, you begin to wonder if you’re actually being attended to by some sort of automated response system rather than by a human being with a brain!

It’s a bit like having a conversation with someone in the complaints department of a big telecommunications company!

Back to the subject at hand – I’m finding the shopping cart very easy to use and getting questions answered is a relatively simple and frustration free exercise. So far I’d say the hosted shopping cart is money well spent.

Our shopping cart site was delivered ahead of schedule, a few days ago. It caught us on the hop so now article writers are busy getting our plr article packs together. I have to say, I’m very impressed with the simplicity of the cart administration and I’m very pleased I selected this particular cart. It’s a very logical set up and I don’t have to look too far, or read mountains of material to work out what to do. Simple is good.  I like it.

No major issues with it so far although I have had questions for the support team. The first was answered in a day or so. The second was sent a day or so ago so I expect they’ll respond shortly. I still have quite a few things to work out but on the whole, I think it’s going to work out very well for us. Did I mention it was simple to use? It has everything I need and nothing I don’t need. I just love simple.  The less buttons to push and things to click, the less trouble I’m likely to get myself into! I’m the sort of person who resents having to search through 50 different types of toothpaste at the supermarket to find the one marked “regular” and I think the person who designed the Magicdust shopping cart must be a kindred spirit!

So far we have only 4 article packs up – on the topics of employment, small business, work from home and Christmas – but there should be several more going up this week.

Well it’s a case of so far so good with out Magicdust shopping cart experience and I’m really looking forward to seeing our new PLR article site up and running.

After completing the design brief we quickly received four designs to choose from. I’m pleased to say it was a difficult choice – because all four were very professional in appearance and any of the four would have done the job nicely.

After only a little agonising, I suggested some minor changes – these were done and several modified versions were sent promptly – groan…another decision to make.  Seriously, it was quite painless, and I’m very happy with the way the new site will look. My guess is it will be finished ahead of schedule at the current pace – so we’re quite busy preparing the plr article packs so they’ll be ready to upload at the earliest opportunity.

Speaking of work…back to the article writing!

The shopping cart is for a new website we’re establishing – from which we’ll market and sell our own high quality PLR article packs. We’ve chosen a hosted cart option and Magicdust is our chosen supplier. While making our decision, these are the things we had in mind:

1. We wanted a shopping cart with a simple admin panel. Our business isn’t complicated and we don’t want making changes to the site to be complicated either. We looked at the Magicdust admin demo several times and compared it to others. It looked like the simplest and most appropriate set up for us. Bells and whistles are fine if you need them but they’re just clutter if you don’t!

2. Naturally, we wanted a nice design. Now design is a very subjective thing but for us, something that is uncluttered and easy on the eye, yet attractive seems the way to go. We viewed the sites Magicdust had listed as samples of their work. Only one was appealing to us. We decided to dig further so we searched “powered by Magicdust” to find other sites they’d designed. Obviously, their designers are working to client instructions so we didn’t expect to like everything we saw – but we saw enough to be confident that they had some skilled designers on their team.

3. Looking at a lot of the shopping cart sites they’d created gave us a new concern. Most of them had no ranking at all – so we began to worry about SEO. Just a couple we found had good rankings. So we went back and looked over the shopping cart sites to see if we could see the problem. It was very obvious – the carts with no ranking had very little content. Some had plenty of products, but they were only supported by one or two sentence product descriptions and many had no other significant content on the sites. By contrast, the sites with ranking had lengthier product descriptions and plenty of other content.

4. Next, we scoured the forums looking for comments on Magicdust as the level of customer service, particularly post-construction is quite important to us – we’re going to be asking a lot of stupid questions! We found one very negative item but the writer wasn’t very clear about just what the problem had been and his comments suggested that he didn’t really understand that as it was a hosted shopping cart solution, he didn’t really own it. As the business seems to have created quite a few sites, we decided to disregard this item.

5. Finally, we asked some of the designers and SEO folk we know. None had heard any negative reports and we established that to have our own shopping cart website designed so we’d own it would be quite an expensive exercise. We decided that as the Magicdust design solution we needed was inexpensive at around AU$1000, the hosting would only amount to about $600 a year, and the site could be up and running quite quickly, it was worth starting out this way.

It did occur to us to contact some of the people operating Magicdust shopping carts and ask them directly about their experiences, but we decided this would be futile as the outcome would be predictable – those with good rankings and traffic would probably be happy, and those whose sites weren’t attracting traffic would be unhappy – and it would not have been the fault of Magicdust.

Completion time for our PLR article site is estimated at about 8 weeks, although with Christmas fast approaching, I suspect it might be a little longer. During that time, our writers will be busy writing the PLR articles, in between all the other unique articles and blog posts that they write.

If you have any topic suggestions for PLR article packs, or you’d like to be notified when the PLR articles will be available for purchase, feel free to send us an email.

This will be my first shopping cart experience so I’ve love to hear from anyone with any advice – particularly anyone who’s had a shopping cart experience that has exceeded their expectations! We love good news.

© Article Writers Australia 2009

It can be any of a number of things however a very common problem we see on shopping cart sites is a lack of written content. If your website has been set up by a professional with SEO expertise and has cost you a small fortune, it’s likely they’d have mentioned the importance of written content to you at some stage – but these things are easily forgotten in the excitement of kicking off a new enterprise.

Content costs money if you need to use a content writing service so many website owners decide it’s just too expensive – and that’s a huge mistake. Content for a shopping cart website should be considered an important investment in the future of your business. Without it, your shopping website simply won’t have much of a future!

What Type of Content?

There is ample opportunity to add to the written content of a shopping cart website. A great place to start is with the product descriptions. If you simply upload the descriptions provided, not only are they usually very brief, but you’ll probably find that those same descriptions are on numerous other websites. That’s not going to do your website any good at all.

The answer is simple – beef up the product descriptions. If they’re just one or two sentences long, rewrite and expand them to about 200-250 words. It can be a time consuming job but you can have a content writing service like Article Writers Australia do it for you and you’ll have it ready to put up in about a week.

Another great way of adding content to your site is by adding articles or blog postings that are relevant to the products or the services you offer.

Keywords

Every time you add content to your website you should have your targeted keywords in mind. The more relevant content you have the more traffic you’re likely to bring to your site. For example, if you are selling wedding dresses, having a range of articles on your site that are all about weddings will help.

You might choose to have 50 wedding related articles on topics from cakes to coping with pre-wedding jitters. The result will be that your site will contain numerous wedding related words which can enhance your site ranking – which in turn makes it more likely you’ll be found by potential customers.

What to Do

There’s a reason they say “content is King”. If you have a shopping cart website that isn’t performing at its best, try one or all of these:

• Increasing the length of your product descriptions and making them interesting to read.

• Setting up a blog and posting at least four relevant articles to it every month – whether it’s a funny wedding related story or an item about a new product.

• Adding articles to your site. If you’re on a limited budget, even ten articles will help. Twenty five is better. Some serious marketers go to a hundred or more but adding content gradually is a good way to go so just order them as you can afford them. Naturally, when you begin to see an increase in website visitors, you’ll want more.

Whatever type of content you decide to add, make sure it’s well written. Poorly written content makes your business look unprofessional. If you don’t have great writing skills, or you simply don’t have time, outsource the work to a content writing service and get your shopping cart website moving!

• Build a Website
• Set up a Business Blog
• Advertise on other websites
• Advertise in online publications
• Use Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
• Join forums and social networking groups
• Marketing Articles

Build a Website

This is by far the best way to put your small business on the Internet. It will cost money but once it’s done, it can be a means of free advertising that is working for your business 24/7.  Unless you know how to build your own site, you’ll need to find a website designer – look for one that understands SEO (search engine optimization).  In fact, rather than search for website designers, search for SEO experts who also design websites. Search engine optimization techniques are things done to a website to help ensure the website comes up well in the organic search results when people search for the products or services you offer. If your website designer knows nothing about SEO you may end up with a beautiful website that nobody visits.

Websites need both quantity and quality when it comes to written content. It can pay to have a content writing service write additional content for your website. Those articles might offer your website visitors “how to” advice related to your products, examples and case studies, comparisons and reviews. The more relevant content your site contains, the more visitors it is likely to attract.

Set up a Business Blog

If you don’t believe spending money on a website is justified for your small business, you could choose to set up a business blog.  There are many sites that host blogs for free such as Blogger.com. A blog however requires content to be added to it on a regular basis. Unless you can do that or pay a blog writer to do it for you, you are likely to be disappointed with the result.

You can use your blog to post information about new products and services, product reviews, topical stories about your industry or trade, and the occasional personal opinion or comic post on something relevant to your business. It’s generally best not to stray onto personal topics on a business blog. The key with blogs is the volume and quality of the content and the consistency of your postings. There are many successful, well visited blogs on the Internet – but for every successful one there are many more that few people ever read. It will come down to the effort you put into it.

If you have a website, there is still tremendous advantage in adding a blog to it. The content of the blog will generate additional traffic and allow you to make use of keywords you haven’t used on the main pages of your website.

Advertise on Other Websites

This is an option that works best if you have a website so that people who click on your advertisement are taken to your website.  If you do consider this method of advertising, think about the types of websites you’ll find your prospective clients on. When considering particular websites, ask the webmaster for their traffic statistics and ask them to give you a breakdown of local and global traffic – there’s no point advertising on a site if 99% of their visitors are in the US and you can only service New South Wales, Australia.

Advertise in Online Publications

As you would with any print publication, check the circulation figures and again, ask how many are local. There are numerous online publications. When considering a particular publication, ask yourself whether the readers of that publication are likely to be interested in what your small business has to offer. To state the obvious, if you advertise your roofing business in a publication that targets teenagers, your response rate is likely to be miniscule. Likewise, spruiking the latest technology gadget to retirees is also likely to fall on deaf ears. The cost of advertising in online publications is often quite low but even spending $100 is too much if only two prospective clients receive the publication. Ask for some sample copies of the publication. Contact a couple of the advertisers and ask them whether they are happy with the response they received from their ad.

Pay Per Click Advertising

This can be good for a business with a brand new website that isn’t yet coming up well in the organic search listings. If you look at the right hand side of your browser after you have done a Google search, you’ll see advertisements down the right hand side, and often in a yellow box at the top of the page. These are Adwords advertisements.

If you sign up with Google Adwords you can set up an online advertising campaign yourself. You’ll need to develop an understanding of keywords. They are the words or phrases that people seeking your services or product might type into the search box when searching online. Businesses bid on these keywords – the aim being to position their advertisement high enough up on the first page of the organic listings that they receive a certain volume of “click throughs” from the advertisement to their website. Learn to use the Google Keyword Tool. This will help you select appropriate keywords.

Another feature of Adwords is that you can confine your campaign geographically – so if you can only service your state, you can choose to have your advertisements displayed only to people searching for a product or service in your state.

Using PPC you will pay every time someone clicks your advertisement. The amount you pay will depend on the bids you have set. You can set a daily budget to ensure you don’t spend more than anticipated. Adwords is a great tool but only a small percentage of people who search click on the advertisements. Most focus on the organic listings – that’s why having a well designed, properly optimized website with well written content will pay dividends. Your SEO expert will optimize your website for the keywords you need. Once your site begins to come up well in the organic listings, you may find you don’t need to pay for advertising at all.

If you are going to try Google Adwords PPC, have a scout around online and you’re likely to find some promotional vouchers that give you a credit of around $50 to kick off your Google campaign. The voucher will provide a code number that you insert when signing up for your Adwords campaign. Some website designers can provide you with a promotional code, so if you’re having a website designed, it won’t hurt to ask if they have one for you.

Join Forums and Social Networks

Joining forums and online social networks such as FaceBook and Twitter can be a great way to expose your small business to others for free. Forums are online communities and tend to focus on a particular theme. There are numerous forums out there on a huge variety of topics – you’ll find forums on renovation, affiliate marketing, parenting, and pet care and just about anything else you can think of. If you have expertise in a particular area, once you’ve joined the forum you can post responses to questions and ask some of your own. If you have your website address and business name displayed in the signature panel of your post, you have a free advertisement that can be viewed by hundreds and sometimes thousands of forum visitors. Becoming an active member of an online forum community can bring not only new clients but useful business contacts to your door.

FaceBook and Twitter are online social networks. You can become “friends” with people whose interests are similar to your own and with people you think might find your services useful.  You really need to enjoy social networking for it to become a useful small business tool. If you find it tedious or don’t have time for it you are not likely to persist with it long enough to gain any marketing benefits from it.

Marketing Articles

If you have a website you can write articles on topics related to your small business and submit them to article directories.  These directories normally permit you to put your business name and website link in a “resource box” at the bottom of the article. The articles are distributed online and can find their way onto other websites when website owners decide the content is relevant to their site, or that their visitors might find the information useful. If you don’t have time to write articles you can hire online article writers to do it for you.

Article marketing requires consistent effort if you are doing it yourself but can increase the number of visitors to your website. It will work best for businesses that can service the international market so if your small business is geographically confined you may want to consider other methods of online advertising.

Whichever online marketing method you choose for your small business, try to keep statistics on how many website visitors and enquiries you receive from it so you know how well it’s working for you! This can be done by setting up a Google Analytics account.

It may seem daunting if you are new to online marketing but if you operate a small business you really can’t afford to ignore the potential of online marketing.

1. If you advertise regularly in a newspaper or on radio or television, you pay and you keep paying. If you print and deliver leaflets, you pay each time you do it. If you lease a big city billboard you pay monthly rental over and over again. If you use pay per click for online advertising, you pay every single time someone clicks to visit your website, even if they click straight off again. However, once your small business blog is set up, it’s like having a permanent billboard on the Internet – for FREE.

1. A small business blog grows every time you add a post to it. If you think of your blog as an Internet billboard you are in effect, making it bigger and more visible, every time you add a post – for FREE.

1. You can change the product or service you are focussing on with each post – and it will cost you nothing. You are in complete control.

1. By choosing “keywords” to include in your postings, you can attract relevant visitors to your website – even visitors who are looking for one of your competitors products.

1. Did I mention it was FREE?

My first blog was a small business blog, set up for a traditional business with a simple website. The business concerned was not Internet related. I procrastinated for six months before adding the blog to the website. The industry concerned was not known for blogging. I knew many of my competitors would consider blogging as a bit undignified – but my personal research suggested that it would bring many more potential clients to our front door – and as a small business owner I couldn’t overlook the fact that is was FREE.

The blog was added and I began posting.  Within a few weeks our website traffic had increased by 30%. Now the blog was not advertising particular products because the business supplied a service. Instead, articles on the blog provided visitors with information about our services, and topics relevant to our targeted clients. When people making phone enquiries began to thank me for information I’d posted on the blog, I knew I’d hit pure gold. In the current financial climate, most small businesses could use a little of that gold.

If you thought blogging was a teenage pastime, it’s time for a re-think! Blogging as an Internet marketing strategy is a winner – don’t be shy, get your small business blog up and running!

• Write your own eBook
• Hire a ghost writer

Writing your own eBook

The idea will seem daunting at first but like every big task, if you break it down into smaller chunks, it won’t feel so unmanageable. The biggest mistake inexperienced writers make is that they start writing without a plan or “outline”. Without a plan you’re in danger of wandering from topic to topic within each chapter and becoming frustrated with the writing process. This is where most people give up. To make a simple plan, follow these steps:

• List broad topics you would like to cover in your eBook
• Consider each broad topic a chapter
• Give each broad topic a heading – that is your chapter title
• Do the titles have a natural chronological order? If so, list them in order
• Under each chapter title, write notes about the information you’ll include

With that done, you have “outlined” your book. Now it is simply a matter of expanding on the subject matter.

If you writing skills aren’t up to bringing it all together, or you simply don’t have time to do it yourself, you can always hire a ghost writer.

Hiring a Ghost Writer

Hundreds if not thousands of eBooks are being written by ghost writers every day for website owners like you. Their services are generally not that expensive, particularly when you consider what a fabulous marketing tool an eBook can be – you can sell it or give it away. It’s a one-off expense and if you’re an affiliate marketer the book will most likely contain several of your affiliate links.  If you require a relatively simple eBook, each chapter can be written as an article – so if you have 15 chapters, you can give the ghost writer your 15 chapter titles and ask for 15 articles. If your book is a personal story, a text or a work of fiction, the ghost writer may ask for further information and give you an individual quote.

The best way to approach using the services of a ghost writer is to provide the writer with an outline you have prepared. Give them clear instructions on what information you want included. The clearer your instructions, the more likely you are to be happier with the end result. Best of all, as term ghost writer implies, the writer’s name doesn’t go on the book – your name does.

Once you decide to write an eBook for your website, the whole process may take less than a week – particularly if you hire a ghost writer.

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