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Do You Link?
For those of you that write articles to promote your business and work to naturally improve the likelihood people can find your business on the internet (search engine optimization) through your web site, newsletter or blog, I have a question for you.
Do you link?
There are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people out there scrambling to get their name in front of their ideal prospects - your ideal prospects. Like me, many of these people write articles (like this one) to promote what they do.
And like most writers, I include a link to my web site and my email address and other contact information in hopes that readers will either subscribe to my ezine, or visit my web site when they see how much I can teach them, and how much value I have to offer.
These are great inexpensive ways to grow your business and build your ezine list, and I highly recommend you continue to practice these marketing techniques.
However, in today's ever changing marketing environment writing articles is just not good enough anymore. Experts are now suggesting that in addition to writing and publishing articles you need to include links throughout your articles and blog posts. Not just one link, but several throughout the article or posting.
Using links to related articles and blogs, and even other people's sources of information, is now a minimum to get ahead of the competition and improve your rankings.
While this may not be totally new news, linking has always been popular and something we do on our web site to lead people onto other areas of our site; including links in just about everything you do is now more than just a nice thing to do every once in a while.
Frankly, my first reaction is UGH.
More tedious work.
I am good about dedicating time on Thursdays to writing content and articles for my ezine, The Healthcare Marketing Connection, and am a so-so blogger. I do post on my blog -- sometimes. And I do post on other people's blogs -- once in a while. (See how I threw those links in there? That's what I'm talking about.)
But where do you draw the line? It takes time to link to other resources and to trackback on blogs and be marketing all over the place. What's the balance between marketing all the time and actually getting some work done? And who has time to actually create products when you are putting all this energy into linking?????
Who is actually out there writing the copy for clients or conducting workshops and teaching others if they are spending most of their time marketing?
This is the dilemma I know business owners for all eternity have balanced and toyed with. And the good ones get it right and find the balance.
A couple of years ago my business coach told me that I would spend more time marketing and working ON my business than I would actually working IN my business. And I have found this to be true.
My first reaction when she told me this was negative. I did not want to spend my time working on my business, I wanted to write copy. I love writing copy and I love the process that goes with it and that is what I was going to do. I can tell you that I have changed my mind and now spend a lot of time working ON my business - and I LOVE every minute of it.
Finding a balance is key here. The balance may come in when I decide that yes, I love writing and will continue to write articles and teach others how to market and grow their business. And maybe my assistant can help spruce it up with some links as we go along.
(c) 2007, A Marketing Connection
Want to use this article in your e-zine or web site? No problem! Just let me know at info@KellyRobbinsLLC.com. I'll send you a short bio to include at the end of the article.
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