EzineArticles.com is the largest, and by far the most popular article directory. Let’s look at their specific guidelines about submissions.

According to EzineArticles.com, all submissions must use proper English, grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc. In addition, your article may not be PLR (right out of the box) or contain content you don’t own exclusively. It may not be time sensitive such as a press release, may not be a sales letter or self-promoting, may not contain profanity or promote anything illegal or unethical and may not be simply rehashed content you can find elsewhere.

There are other considerations, but these are the basics. In essence, your article must contain quality original content that you own completely and that offers solid, useful information for the reader.

Your article must be in a specific format including the title, the resource box, links and keywords. And any links to affiliate products must be to a top level domain only. That means if you want to promote an affiliate product, you must register a domain name for that product and direct people there. No sub-directories, single pages or referral links are allowed in the article.

So… with all that said, is it worth submitting your article to EzineArticles.com? Absolutely! Article submission is an excellent marketing method as stated above. The key is to follow the directions and do it right.

If you’re unsure about your skills as a writer, or need help with your article submissions, contact me and let me tell you how we can help you get your articles published at EzineArticles.com and other directories!

Hi… I’m Darlene Bishop, but you can call me Dee. I’m the head writer here at Get Content Results (GCR) and I wanted to introduce myself and give you a sample of what I can do for you and your business.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 10 years old. In fact, I wrote a story and submitted it to Golden Books for publication. Because I neglected to include my return address, however, I never knew if they accepted my manuscript or not. But that didn’t stop me!

As a self-educated writer from my early teens on, I’ve devoured multitudes of books on writing principles and practiced every writing exercise in each of them. During college, I majored in business with a strong emphasis on writing. Later, my skills were used extensively in varied jobs from executive assistant to desktop publisher, and then to managing editor for a small (now defunct) newspaper in Knoxville, Tennessee.

My writing background includes hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines and online publications, press releases, ebooks, reports, newsletters, website content and more. A number of my articles and short pieces have been published in various print publications, including Woman’s Day, Business Today, Penny Press, Publish and Dell.  I typically focus on writing for business, however, rather than publication, and have made a full-time career of being a professional freelance writer.

As a ghostwriter, I offer clients the opportunity to own professional quality articles at an affordable price—lock, stock and copyright. That means that when you buy an article from GCR, you can put your byline on it, you can edit it if you choose, you can publish it on your own site, submit it to other publishers and do anything else you want with it… just as if you had written it yourself. Because unless you tell them, no one will ever know you didn’t!

Some clients ask if ghostwriting is ethical. My quick answer is Absolutely! Ghostwriting is readily accepted in the world of print and online publishing and there is no shame in using ghostwritten content. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

Now that you know more about the writer behind the content at GCR, here are some ghostwriting samples of my work to give you an idea of what I can provide for you. If you have questions, or need more information, please don’t hesitate to contact me or Anna Marie. We look forward to working with you!

Ghostwriting Samples:

• How-to Locate New Recruits Online
• Create a Profit Plan for Your Home-Based Business
• Do You Really Want to Be a Work-at-Home-Mom?
• Driving Traffic to Your Site Using Free Directories

Specialized free directories and portals are one of the web-marketing tools you don’t want to ignore when trying to build up your site’s popularity. Choose the directories that fit your niche for the best results. For instance, if you run a golf related site, don’t waste your time on directories that deal only with pets.

Many of the free directories, indices, and portals will include your site at no charge, though some do require a reciprocal link in return. And they’re available on every imaginable topic from general business and shopping portals to everything in between. These sites provide you with credible backlinks, which will improve your overall search engine ranking, and send interested, targeted visitors to your site.

Look for appropriate directories that offer no cost listings where you can submit your site. Here are a number of free directories to get you started:

A Big Dir

http://www.abigdir.com/

Add Your Link

http://www.addyourlink.org/

AnyWho

http://anywho.com

Craig’s Directory

http://www.craigs-directory.com

Directory-Free

http://www.directory-free.com/

DMEGS

http://www.dmegs.com

Free Website Directory

http://www.freewebsitedirectory.com

Newmis Directory

http://newmis.net

Open Directory Project (This is a biggie… be sure to follow their instructions to the letter!)

http://dmoz.org/

PegasusDirectory

http://www.pegasusdirectory.com

Visit When We SEO’s Web Search Directory at http://www.whenweseo.com/web_directories/directory_search.jsp to find additional free directories in almost any niche or topic area.

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This ghostwriting sample is copyrighted and cannot be used without written permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Do you really want to be a  work-at-home-mom (WAHM)? Do you really want to succeed in your own work-at-home business? Really?

The reason I ask is that so many of the WAHMs I come in contact with on a daily basis don’t act as if they want to work at home. It’s more as if they want to stay at home – and to justify that to themselves and their husbands, they call themselves a WAHM!

Now, before you hit delete, and never speak to me again, let me say that I understand the mindset!

I hated working outside the home and if I still had little ones running around, I’d hate it even more. But if you’re truly trying to build a home-based business, you may need to change the way you think about some things.

• Act Like a Professional

Do you treat your business day like an ongoing party? Do you spend hours entering contests, playing games on Facebook, chatting in the WAHM forums, searching for good deals at eBay? Then wonder why you’re not making any money?

We all want to have fun at what we’re doing – Fun is my middle name! – but when you’re trying to build an online business, and especially if you’re trying to start from scratch with little or no cash, it takes work… hard work! A lot of work! You have to sacrifice to build a business, and doing it online is no different.

When you decide that you are a professional – a business owner – and that you simply choose to base your business in your home, you’ve made the first huge step in creating your work-at-home success.

• Communicate Like a Professional

Email is the form of communication for online business. True, we may get an occasional phone call, but we know that 99 percent of our business communications will be via email. As such, treat your email like you would if you were answering a business phone in a brick and mortar business.

* Answer promptly. Within 24 hours maximum. And if you have to be later than that – and we all do at times – apologize! Let the correspondent know why you’re late in replying.

* Answer politely. Don’t jump to negative conclusions about what’s being said until you know all the facts.

* Use proper grammar. Mixed case letters, not all lower or uppercase. Periods and commas. Limited exclamation points. Question marks. You don’t have to be an English teacher to use a semblance of appropriate grammar. No one expects it to be perfect! But they do expect you to do the best you can.

• Don’t Hide Behind Your Website

Let people know who they’re doing business with. I wouldn’t offer my credit card to a sales rep who hid her face behind a screen. Nor will others offer theirs to you if you don’t include your name, address (PO box is okay), city, state, zip and at least the option to email and ask for a telephone number.

Remember… this is a business. Treat it as such. If you are truly frightened of someone discovering who you are, maybe you should be selling only through eBay and online auctions.

• Create a Professional Website

If your Website plays music the minute a visitor clicks to it, if it’s loaded with so many banners it takes three minutes to load, if it’s so full of grammatical errors that it’s hard to understand what you’re trying to say, do you honestly think someone is going to give you their money?

I wouldn’t! And I shop online weekly.

If you’re unable to create a professional Website, hire someone to do it for you. Many online website designers can create a simple Website for you for less than $100. Save up the money and do it! Stop making excuses.

• Realize There are Costs Involved

When I first came online in 1998, I started with a free site. After three months of barely making a sale, I listened to an early mentor and registered my domain name ($29 back then!) and got my first hosted Website ($8.95 a month). In two weeks, I was making more money than I had made all three of those previous months combined!

I learned that it takes money to build a business… any business. And while working online – and working at home – gives you the ability to build a business on a shoestring, there are still costs involved. You need your own domain name ($4 for the first year from MyValueHost.com. And you need to trash the free site hosting (many sites offers sub-domain hosting that works with your own domain name for only $5 per month). Working at home is worth $5 a month!

Don’t have the money? Earn it! Have a yard sale. Sell a few loaves of your special cranberry bread. Mend a few dresses. Clean a few houses. Leave off a couple of 12-packs of soda at the grocery store every month and you’ve paid for it. These are minimal costs for the privilege of raising your own kids.

These are some beginning strategies for building a business online. Use them. Find others. Work at building your home business so you can be a work-at-home-mom. Don’t let your chances for working at home fall by the wayside. Do everything you can do to make it your work-at-home business a success. You know that’s what you really want to do.

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This ghostwriting sample is copyrighted and cannot be used without written permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

It’s easy to find a catchy domain name, upload a website and start promoting your URL. But if you don’t take the time to decide, in advance, what you’ll sell and/or what services you’ll provide, you may be setting yourself up for failure from day one. Unless you intend to operate your website strictly as a hobby, you MUST have a plan for profit before you begin. You need to know how your site will earn an income for you.

Now, you don’t have to have a professionally written, formal business plan with all the sections and criteria that a bank would require… though if you’re capable of creating a formal business plan, and you feel it would help you in your business, go for it! But you do need a simple, working plan that outlines what products/services you’ll sell, how much they’ll cost you to produce or purchase, and how much you will earn off the sale of each one.

Creating such a plan is simple. Just ask yourself some relevant questions, and jot down the answers where they’ll be handy to refer back to, and you’ll have the foundation for a solid business start-up.

Here are some questions to begin with…

• What will you sell?

List every product and service you can think of – include advertising on your website or in your Ezine, if applicable, and any affiliate programs you plan to join, if you’ll be working online.

• Where will you get these items?

You may create some things, buy some wholesale, or provide only services or advertising, but whatever the case, write it down.

• What are your costs?

List your wholesale prices here (or retail if that’s what you’ll pay). Be sure to list an appropriate hourly rate for any services you plan to provide.

• How much will you charge?

Be sure to include a percentage markup for overhead costs, otherwise you won’t be making as much as you thought. And while prices for some items, such as affiliate programs are set for you, record them here, anyway. That way you’ll be aware of the potential for profit from every single item on your site.

• What is your profit margin?

Some items will earn you 50 percent, some 100 percent mark-up, others more or less, but record them all. Then deduct your cost from the selling price of each item and record this a profit.

If you choose, you can create a much more elaborate profit plan for your business, and that’s okay. But even the simple worksheet you’ll create with this information will help you see more clearly where your money will come from when working at home. And it will help to ensure that you’re giving yourself enough products or services to generate a profit. After all, while you may thoroughly enjoy your work – and you should! – the bottom line in business, is to generate a profit, don’t you agree?

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This ghostwriting sample is copyrighted and cannot be used without written permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The first thing to do is be sure your recruiting information is clearly posted on your website. This will be the page you direct prospective recruits to, so let it answer any question a new recruit might have.

Also add a signature file to all outgoing emails. This is usually done through the Tools, Options or Preferences section of your email program. Doing so will put a link to your website at the bottom of every message you send out and will let others know what your business is. It will also attract people to your website, which is what you want.

Use a creative tag line rather than simply the name of your company. Something like “Looking for a work-at-home opportunity that costs less than a new dress?” or “Ask me how you can earn a FREE sales kit when you join my team!” Come up with something that will interest prospective recruits and get them to click the link for more information.

Discussion forums are a tremendous location for finding new direct sales recruits. Search for “WAHM discussion forum” (without the quotes) and you’ll come up with hundreds of possibilities. Visit the most likely results and see which ones appeal to you.

You’ll want to join forums that attract people who are looking for a work-at-home opportunity or a way to earn some extra money rather than those that deal specifically with directs sales. You’re looking for places that attract people who want to become a consultant, not one filled with other company reps.

In addition to online forums, search for email groups to join as well. Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, and similar sites offer thousands of email lists on any topic you can imagine. Search for large groups that have been around awhile and that show a lot of interaction between members.

Again, target lists that attract your ideal recruit, rather than those filled with other consultants. And avoid those that are strictly ads. Ad lists (often called “SPAM lists”) are a waste of time. People join them simply to send their own ads and very few members actually read the messages.

Use your social networking sites to tell people about your business opportunity. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other sites allow you to post small bytes of information that can “tease” people into visiting your site to learn about your business.

You don’t want to send only such posts to these sites, but throwing in a few casual “ads” every day is totally acceptable, and might gain you some of your best recruits.

Place an ad on Craigslist. Be sure to post your ad in the correct business slot, or under the employment ads that apply to commission only jobs. Sometimes people will flag what they consider a competing business opportunity simply out of spite. So don’t be surprised if your ad gets kicked off, even if you followed the rules.

Keep an eye on the site and if your ad “disappears,” simply repost it again. If it continues to be deleted, you might want to contact the webmaster to verify you’re posting correctly. (Though you may not always get a response.) But hopefully, your competitor will eventually get the message that you’re determined to place an appropriate ad on the site and stop flagging it.

A very important rule of “netiquette” to keep in mind is to never use SPAM to locate new recruits. SPAM is unsolicited commercial messages sent to people you don’t know or who haven’t asked to receive your information. Sending such messages can get you kicked off forums, dropped from lists and banned quicker than you can say “I’m sorry!”

Learning how-to locate new recruits online is a simple process, and one that will reward you greatly as you begin to sign on new team members and consultants to build your business.

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This ghostwriting sample is copyrighted and cannot be used without written permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

To make it easier for you, you can download our Article Planning Form to help you plan for all the proper SEO aspects of your article before you even write one word. This will ensure you don’t leave anything out, and give you a quick outline of what you want to say. Here’s a breakdown of the information you’ll have once you complete this form. This should also help you fill out each field in case you have questions.

Post Title: Keep it short, snappy and applicable to the content.

Keyword(s): This is the most important keyword or phrase in your article. It’s the one searchers will use to find you in the search engines. Include it in your title, your first sentence, in the body of your post and your last sentence.

Secondary Keywords (optional and up to 3): These aren’t mandatory but using variations or complementary keywords can add to the power of your article’s SEO.

Viewpoint: This will be the approach you want to take in your article. For instance, if you plan to write an article about Baking Cookies, your viewpoint might be to share tips on how to follow a recipe, share tips for not burning them, etc. Alternatively, your viewpoint could be where to find the best recipes. It’s the gist of what your article will cover and your opinion.

Example: While optional, an example can add interest to your article as well as making it easier to understand.

Possible links:

• Internal:  This will be links to other articles or products on your own website.
• External:  This will be links to articles or products on another website such as a resource site. Be careful to not include too many links that take visitors away from your site, especially to your competitor’s.
• Affiliate:  This will be links to affiliate products that you earn a commission on. While you don’t want to use too many, this is a good way to earn extra money from your Website.

Call to Action at the end: – Always include some kind of call to action.

• Invite readers: This is a good way to get readers to interact and get involved. Ask them to comment on some aspect of your article.
• Prompt readers to take action:  Alternatively, you can ask readers to download an ebook, click on a link to learn more about the topic, get information on a related product, subscribe to your posts, etc.

Graphic: – Graphics are another item that add interest to a blog post. Just be sure they’re applicable, non-offensive and you have the right to use them.

• Concept: This is the type of graphic you want to use.  Ask yourself “What do I want a picture of?”
• Alt Attributes: Use your keyword, or your article title which should include your keyword, in the Alt tag.

Using this Simple SEO Article Planning Form can help you write quicker by knowing what direction you want to take with your article in advance. It can also help ensure every post you write uses solid SEO strategies. These will improve your Search Engine Results (SER) and help rank your articles and Website higher in Google and other search engines.

Instead of wondering if you can work with a writer, or what the experience may be like, test the waters. Dip your toe in by ordering one article to start and see how well it works for you. By starting slow, you can see what kind of information you’ll need to provide your writer, how well an article meets your needs, and how easy it is to order just what you want.

Good content is what makes the difference in a successful website or online business and one that’s barely getting by, or failing miserably. Online business is content driven. That’s why it’s key to add plenty of fresh articles, press releases, blog posts and reports to your site on a regular basis. But if you’re not a natural writer or don’t have the time to write, your business will suffer while your competitors—who frequently add content—will thrive. You NEED quality content for your website!

The joy of working with a ghostwriter is that you eliminate the work of writing, which is especially hard for some people, and turn it over to a professional who’s used to wracking her brain for just the right word or description. Hiring a ghostwriter doesn’t cost near as much as you might think. Because of the convenience and cost savings of working at home, you can hire a professional ghostwriter for less than the cost of a dinner for two.

When you decide to take that first step and order your first article, you’ll be hiring a ghostwriter who understands the importance of your business image, and who will do everything in her power to see that your article meets or excels your quality standards.

So why not give our ghostwriting services a try? I can assure you, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how painless the process is. And the boost to your business will astound you!

Your best option, then, is to outsource your content management. Free yourself to do the things that make you money and let someone else handle the other tasks. Consistently adding fresh and original website content is key to your Internet marketing success. Why gamble with such a crucial aspect of your business?

By hiring a content manager to manage your content, you can be sure your site is being updated regularly, be it every day, three times a week, or at another interval. This means, especially if you run a WordPress site, your site is hitting the search engines continually and improving your rankings each time. It also means that your subscribers and visitors will find plenty of new information to keep them interested in your website’s topic.

Consistently feeding new content to your readers will bring them back, time and time again, to see what else you have to offer. This means they’re more likely to leave comments, share your posts with others and buy your products and services. That’s the goal of quality content. But it needs to be added regularly to have the most impact on your bottom line.

If you’re a writer, you can gain all that time you would spend managing your content in creating new products to sell. Ebooks, ecourses, marketing messages, articles and more all take time to write. When you outsource your content management, you have a lot more time to do what you need to do for your business success. It’s just that simple.

A good content manager can also help you create a content publishing schedule, keep you on track with product creation and get your content posted on other sites as well. All tasks that will allow you to do what you do best… generate more income.

Finding the right content manager is important. If you’d like to learn more about how I can work with you to provide all these benefits and more, contact me now and let’s discuss your content needs!

Here’s how to create a customer survey that will give you meaningful results with the least amount of effort on your customer’s part.

Start by Deciding What You Want to Learn

What specific information do you want to learn by conducting this customer survey? Simply saying “We want to get to know our customers better” is not a good answer. Surveys without a clear goal in mind tend to be far too long and untargeted.

Instead, have a clear question or direction for the survey. For example:

• How is our current service? What are we doing right and what are we doing wrong?
• What do customers want in our current product? What will they want five years from now?
• What is our clients demographics?

Once you have a specific line of questioning or specific question you want to answer, start building your survey.

Creating Your Survey

When you’re creating the survey, make it as short as you possibly can while still getting the data you want. That way you’ll have more people actually complete the survey and you won’t take up too much of your customers time.

Some options for what kinds of questions to have in your survey include:

• Multiple choice answers
• Rating 1-10 scales
• True/false questions
• Strongly agree/strongly disagree scales
• Open-ended answers.

Generally your survey should be a mix of all the above options. Make sure you include at least one open-ended question in your survey so your customers can freely express their thoughts.

Interpreting the Data

Make sure you have statistically significant data for each question before you deem the survey complete.  Collecting 20 survey results isn’t going to be enough of a mixture of to do you much good.

Next, take your survey and start evaluating results and what you’ve learned. Were you right about certain things and off about others? What were you surprised by?

Carefully read over all the open-ended question answers. Were there common themes in the answers?

Now take everything you’ve learned and write down what your top three discoveries were. Then, use the data now available to you to come up with new action plans to improve your customer experience.

One thing to note about customer surveys: If you’re conducting a survey about what customers will or will not buy, keep in mind that what someone says they would buy may not always match what they’d actually pull their credit card out for. It’s good data to have, but having a survey saying that they’d buy something is not a guarantee that the product will sell.

Design your surveys with a specific goal in mind. Keep them short and concise, then use what you’ve learned to immediately create a plan and put it into action.