Is Your Article Marketing Strategy Working? 4 Questions to Ask Yourself

Article Marketing Strategies

on her bike.

Her next step will be this… www.pinkbike.com/video/147106/

Wall Street Journal Article…
online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703467004575463590…

LIFE & STYLE SEPTEMBER 1, 2010 Look Ma, No Pedals!
Ditch the Training Wheels, New Bikes Promise a Faster Way to

By ANJALI ATHAVALEY
Learning to ride a bike usually involves bumps, bruises, lots of practice—and back-breaking pain, too, if you’re the parent running hunched over behind your child’s wobbling cycle.

A new breed of bicycles that claims to help improve balance and allay jitters is changing how kids reach this childhood milestone. The bikes promote a simple strategy: ride without the pedals first.

Balance bikes—also called like-a-bikes and run bikes—are already widespread in Europe and are gaining popularity in the U.S. Bike makers say that children develop balance most effectively by sitting on the bike and walking with their feet flat on the ground and learning to pedal later. The bikes are generally meant for children ages two to five although some parents choose to buy them earlier.

Models cost from to upwards of 0, or more than a regular kid’s bike with pedals. And 4- and 5-year-olds may outgrow them pretty quickly, moving on to a real two-wheeler in less than a year.

Companies that sell these products say they will change the age-old American way of learning to ride by enabling parents to skip a key step: "You won’t see training wheels," says Frank McDonnell, a partner at TurnStyle Brands LLC, exclusive distributor of Early Rider balance bikes in the U.S. "Children that ride a balance bike tend to not need training wheels and will go straight to a two wheeler."

In fact, proponents of this method say training wheels are counterproductive because children become reliant on them. Taking them off is "like trying to go cold turkey on a cocaine addict," says Jennifer McIver, co-owner of Wishbone Design Studio Ltd. in New Zealand. The company designed the Wishbone balance bike, which retails for 9 at Giggle stores and modernnursery.com. The bike has a twist: It can be converted from a three-wheeler to a two-wheeler, so children as young as one can use it.

Why the interest in speeding up the process of learning to ride? "We do everything younger, faster, quicker," Ms. McIver says.

The school of thought on how to ride a bike is changing. The League of American Bicyclists, a Washington non-profit that promotes cycling, includes biking without pedals in its curriculum for certified instructors as the recommended method of training people new to cycling.

"It seems to be easier and more intuitive for kids to scoot along on something," says Andy Clarke, the league’s president. "It gives them a greater sense of control over what they’re doing," he says. There’s no harm in using training wheels but "you don’t want to become dependent."

For adults learning to ride, the challenges are different. Balance comes largely instinctively but "I think as an adult you are just more anxious or more intimidated or inhibited when doing new things," Mr. Clarke says. "It’s not that at the age of 19 you lose the ability to balance. It’s all mental. You feel a bit sheepish about it, and it’s hard to overcome that."

The market for balance bikes in the U.S. is growing. When New York-based Giggle, a children’s products retailer, first started selling the pedal-less LikeaBike six years ago, it cost more than 0 and didn’t draw many buyers. "It wasn’t cheap when you consider that you’re only going to use it for a couple of years," says Giggle’s chief executive and founder Ali Wing. Prices have since come down.

Smart Gear LLC, Deal, N.J., says sales doubled last year from 2008 and are on track to do the same this year. Smart Gear now has seven models, priced from to , says Sam Cohen, Smart Gear chief executive. "

The boom in balance bikes is reminiscent of the kids’ scooter craze that began a decade ago and then leveled off. "I see that most kids have both a scooter and a bike," says Tricia Burke, kids’ brand manager at Trek Bicycle Corp. Even scooters have altered their design to appeal to younger riders. Giggle offers a junior version of the Razor scooter for ages three and up with three wheels to make it more stable for younger riders, says Ms. Wing.

Last week Beth Quenneville, a 27-year-old day care provider in Brandon, Vt., bought a Züm balance bike online from Costco for her 1-year-old son Quinn. "The better thing for him is to learn [is to balance] beforehand and not learn it through falls and spills," she says.

Still, there’s no evidence that these bikes provide children with a more efficient way to learn. "Is it going to give them an advantage? Hard to say," says Chris Koutures, a pediatrician and sports medicine physician in Anaheim Hills, Calif.

Children typically learn to ride a two-wheeler when they are four or five no matter the teaching method, Dr. Koutures says. "By the time they are going to kindergarten, most kids have learned," he says. "It shows that you are making progress in some of the skills we’d expect you to have."

Can a balance bike speed up the process of learning to ride? "It looks like a fun thing for kids to play with," says Garry Gardner a pediatrician in Darien, Ill. "Whether they can really learn to ride [sooner], I don’t know if that claim is legitimate or not."

When Mae Creadick, a 38-year-old legal aid attorney in Asheville, N.C., bought a Strider balance bike for her son Kaz Rogowski for his second birthday she was nervous he would fall. But "he just uses his little feet like Fred Flinstone to stop," she says.

Kaz, now three, has come a long way. "He actually just recently started riding at the local BMX track," Ms. Creadick says. "It makes his father really proud because he’s a BMX racer."

Overall, the market for bikes has taken a hit during the recession . Last year, 14.9 million bicycles were sold, down 19% from 2008, according to the Bikes Belong Coalition, a Boulder, Colo., group representing bike suppliers and retailers.

But the market for kids’ bikes saw less of a decline. Last year, 4.7 million bicycles with wheels smaller than 20 inches in diameter were sold, down 8% from the previous year. Children’s bikes cost less than adult bikes, says Tim Blumenthal, president of Bikes Belong. Also, children outgrow their bikes, needing new ones, and while many parents cut back on spending for themselves during the recession and recovery they kept spending on their kids.

One company is bringing balance bikes to preschools. National Sporting Goods, the distributor of the YBike, a balance bike designed in South Africa, conducted a pilot program this year in three New Jersey preschools. Teachers were given a lesson plan that used the bike to test fundamental motor skills. The company loaned 10 bikes to each of the schools for 30 days.

"The beauty of this is that kids can take to this so quickly," says Gregg Adelsheimer, president of National Sporting Goods. The company plans to expand the program this fall.

It’s possible, of course, to use the pedals-free teaching method without buying a special bike. Zachariah Koshy of Houston, Texas, simply took the pedals off his six-year-old daughter Bela’s bicycle. "Initially, she was worried I was breaking her bike," says the 35-year-old occupational therapist.

Bela, who was five and a half at the time, rode her bike without pedals several times for 15 to 30 minutes over the course of three weeks before catching on. "I stuck the pedals on and she was good to go," Mr. Koshy says. Despite a little wobbling, "her confidence and her balance was a lot better," he says.

Mr. Koshy says it’s not just kids who become dependent on training wheels. "I think parents get lazy when you have the training wheels," he says. "You don’t have to run after them."

Is Your Article Marketing Strategy Working? 4 Questions to Ask Yourself

Article by Nicole Beckett

Article marketing is one of the most popular marketing techniques on the web. By publishing quality articles on your site and on various directories, you can get backlinks and take advantage of free advertising.

But with so many internet marketers trying to reap the benefits, how can you make your article marketing strategy successful? Are you publishing quality articles?

If you want to know if your articles are standing out, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have a great title?

You definitely need to incorporate some of your target keywords, but quality articles have a title that grabs readers’ attention. Your title is the first chance you get to make an impression on visitors, so it needs to be a good one. Depending on your niche, there could be hundreds or thousands of similar articles. Why should searchers pick yours? Give them a reason to click.

Quality articles also deliver on any promises made in the title. If your title asks a question, answer it quickly. Internet searchers have a very small attention span. When it comes to article marketing, you only have a few seconds to capture your readers’ attention. If your title promises to list the “Secrets of Selling Widgets”, those secrets had better be easy to find and comprehend in your article. Otherwise, readers will not bother to stick around, and they will not bother to click on your link.

2. Am I using too many keywords?

Yes, keywords are very important in any article marketing strategy, but they should not take away from your content. By having too many of them, it looks like you’re stuffing. That means the search engines won’t like your article, and neither will your readers. Keep your target keyword density between 2% and 4%. Remember, quality articles are written for people, not for search engines!

3. Am I selling instead of informing?

The entire point of article marketing is to provide readers with new information, so that readers feel comfortable turning into buyers. However, if your article is more of a sales pitch than anything else, readers will be turned off. If readers don’t like your content, your article marketing strategy has failed.

In fact, most article directories do not allow hard sells or links to your site in the body of your article; that’s what your resource box is for. No one wants to read a sales pitch that’s disguised as a quality article.

If you have a quality article with solid facts, it pre-sells your product for you. For example, if you’re selling a tool to quit smoking and your article talks about a newly-discovered health danger for smokers, you’ve just told readers why they need your product – without giving them a hard sell. If they want to learn more, they will click your link at the bottom.

4. Am I being persistent?

So, you’ve published a few articles, but you haven’t seen any results yet? Don’t get discouraged. Article marketing takes time to work. In fact, it can take weeks or even months to see tangible results from your article marketing strategy. If you have quality articles, they will find their way around the internet, generating backlinks and more traffic. To see the most success, you have to be persistent. Submit quality articles to several different directories on a regular basis, and, eventually, you should see some results.

Does your article marketing strategy need an overhaul? Do you need quality articles? Let Nicole Beckett and the team at Premier Content Source solve your SEO content writing woes!

article marketing strategies question by Seo Forever: Where Can I sell Articles (website content)?
I am trying to find a place to sell 175 original website articles w/ SEO. I was just wondering if any website builder would be interested in this. These articles are about SEO, blogging, adsense, Adwords, and other articles of the like. They are all between 200-1200 words. I will leave an example of one below. Paypal for XML file, $ 50.00 for all. They would be great for a new website that doesn’t get too much traffic yet. I only left a partial article sample which is currently listed on my website.

Google Affiliate Network Marketing 101
Google Affiliate Network Marketing 101
Have you wondered what and how does affiliate marketing work? Affiliate marketing is in everybody’s lives every single day of the week. Affiliate marketing is actually a marketing strategy in which a certain business allots affiliates with rewards when new visitors and customers get associated with their business through you or your website. The efforts used to market these businesses is of great value. Google affiliate network marketing really has its benefits!

A good example to think of is one of those reward sites you see on the web. These sites offer you a prize of cash or goods after the completion of one of their thousands of offers. Another good way of looking at this is remembering back when you have received a monetary value for the referral of others. Affiliate marketing is all about helping someone else out in order to help you. The whole term of Google Affiliate network marketing goes round and round like a cueball which never gets locked up or stuck in a hole.

There are actually four core players when it comes to Google affiliate network marketing. These “players” include: The Merchant, the network, the publisher and finally the customer. Each player has their own role when it comes to affiliate marketing and it happens around every human dozens of times a day, whether you know it or not. The complexity of affiliate marketing has grown like weeds in a potato garden. The complexity of newer affiliate marketing strategies are due to the second tier of players.These secondary players of affiliate marketing include affiliate management agencies, specialized third parties vendors, and even super-affiliates.

Affiliate marketing has the ability to intertwine with many other internet marketing methods. With the ability to market both on the web and off, many businesses get to enjoy the flexibility. These intertwining affiliate and internet marketing strategies include many.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Engine Maerketing (SEM)
E-mail MarketingDisplay Advertisingand
so much more

article marketing strategies best answer:

Answer by Alexis Faulkner
Try the warrior forum, that place is full of webmasters… registration is free and you can make your offer there, just make sure you post it on the right forum because they are strict about advertising and spamming.

You can also try fiverr.com very cool place where people offer all kind of services for $ 5 you can sell them there too. Make sure what’s the going price per article is, $ 5 sounds good for a 500 word article.

Good Luck