For the last six years I have been living in the beautiful mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina. Three years ago I experienced what many Americans have since 9/11; I was laid off from my job and there were few prospects in sight. After nine months of unemployment and only one call back in my field I had the inspiration to go into business for myself. I was lucky enough to find a talented, intelligent woman interested in investing in a business partnership with me and we began networking with and marketing to the local community. As time passed we realized what many other small business professionals have in the past, our best bet for success was on the Internet. Online we could reach a much broader client base, which would allow us to make more money and eventually support ourselves through the business.

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I was busiy submitting some articles I ghost wrote for a client to some web portals late one night, when I was struck by a message a web site editor left for visitors. I won’t tell you the actual site name, or mention the company that they are targeting with their message in order to protect their privacy. But the message went something like this. “STOP! If you are submitting articles from article factory, we do NOT publish them on this site.”

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Many clients of Sidhe Communications, http://www.sidhecommunications.com want to know how to increase web traffic. I tell my clients they probably want to increase the number of qualified leads from their web site, not just increase site traffic. As a seasoned internet marketing specialist, I have a great idea that works for this. Cram as much keyword text as possible onto the company home page. Add so much text that the user must scroll down to see it all. Visit a few sites with an astonishing amount of text. You may correctly assume these types of sites benefit from high traffic.

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By now, if you haven’t heard of Blogging, you must be in a coma, seldom watch or listen to the news, or never use the internet. Bloggers are the newest and most popular ‘authentic’ voice on the internet.

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The Art Of Self Promotion
One of the keys to small business success is the ability to develop, write, edit and design your own marketing material. In order to accomplish this goal a small business owner must learn the essential art of self-promotion. The Internet has opened many doors for small business owners and entrepreneurs to market themselves for little or no cost through online writing and publishing. To take advantage of this easy and affordable marketing opportunity all you need is time to research and skills to help you express yourself. Writing skills can be honed with creativity, planning and practice. Building your skill in this area helps create a more focused marketing campaign and increased confidence in your sales approach. Once focus and confidence are infused into your marketing scheme it can generate more leads, more sales and more exposure to your identified consumers.

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Ever wonder why we refer to convincing an editor a story is worthy by “pitching a story?” I have. I’m a baseball enthusiast, and it makes a lot of sense to me. When the editor is at bat with you, he or she has a few swings to make before making a connection - through the story idea (ball) that could end up being a base hit or a home run. Naturally, everyone wants to hit a home run when they go to bat with an editor. Sometimes publicists and writers do have to walk to first base for the story assignment. Here are some helpful tips on how to pitch a story to an editor - and how to at least hit a single, double, or triple - if not a home run on occasion.

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