Stop for one moment and think about the following question.

What is the GOAL of any writing?

The answer is that the goal of any writing is to achieve something. The writing, regardless of being an article, a book, press release, report, business letter, medical journal or love letter, is to let the reader feel something that benefit you in some way.

A writer wrote a book for entertainment purposes yes, but the goal is that as much people as possible feel a desire to buy that book to the financial as well as other benefit of the author. (If many people bought many books of a particular author he/she becomes popular and merely his/her name alone would become good enough to sell more books)

A journalist or freelance columnist wrote news and other articles because it’s their job. The better their news, columnist and other articles the more popular they become with accompanying increase of salary, earnings and recognition. (The same also apply for newspapers and magazines. They don’t write articles themselves but they USE the articles of their journalists and freelance columnists to earn money)

With a business letter, press release and such things the goal is to let the company earn more money by for example to arrange a deal, ask someone to pay their debt and inform more people about their products and services.

With a medical and other types of journals and publications it may be that the author perhaps don’t get money from his/her article, but he benefit from the increased status, recognition and prestige as doctor, scientist and expert in his specific field that in turn leads to increased income.

With a love letter there is perhaps never money involved but it’s all about the emotional and personal benefits that you, or the other person, can get out of such letter. You simply don’t write a love letter if you don’t feel anything for that person and that person doesn’t feel anything for you too.

Content, the articles, news and information, are the same

Simply use the content what you write as a goal to achieve various things. You must decide beforehand WHAT you want to achieve and based on that purpose start to write an article.

Post as much information about your town as possible. The goal is to achieve a TOP ranking for each town portal so that YOU can benefit from the marketing power thereof and the only way how to do that is with a lot of articles with the name of the town, and variations thereof if possible, in such articles. (Where the name of your town is the KEYWORD)

Post as much interesting articles as possible. The goal is to attract as much visitors as possible by provide them with interesting, valuable and helpful information because if they like your articles they will start to trust you and what you have to offer.

Post as much goal specific articles as possible. The goal is to provide many articles about various things what directly and/or indirectly benefit you as business owner. The goal of one article can be to explain the benefits of a domain name, the goal of another article to praise the value of having your own website to promote a business while another series of articles teach people and businesses about web hosting, the benefits, how to do this or that and such things.

Simply put, writing articles, news and content is all about mind games where you must write in such way that you one way or another benefits from it.

The two most important benefits are firstly promotional and secondly financial in nature.

Promotion always comes before any financial benefit so the more articles you write to promote that benefit the town portal promotional wise, the more will your financial benefits be at a later stage.

The secret of the mind game of writing articles is to make the article useful, interesting or valuable, in a subtle way leads the reader to the real goal behind the article and then close the article with an appropriate signature.

Even if your current marketing plan is doing ok, you can always get better results by being more visible. If it is not doing so well this is the way to increase it’s results. This is especially true for the target audiences that you most want to attract and connect with. You can also attract those hidden customers by targeting the places that they are meeting at.

The Internet is especially suited to do that and do it inexpensively. The results will begin to show quickly and will just continue to grow. The best thing is that articles will not cost much less than traditional methods.

There are more and more businesses coming online daily. This is a new avenue and client base for them. So the question becomes. Why the same old costly and inefficient marketing approach? If you are in a new market now would be a good time to explore a new approach that will prove to be less expensive and bring faster and better results. After all and most will agree, its results that counts. A business would be missing out if not willing to look at all alternatives.

For many businesses, the only method they know is marketing by standard advertising. This technique has been handed down and stressed thru the ages as the best and is what the status quo is and has been for many years. Many companies are missing the value and results of articles over standard advertising. This is very unfortunate and costly. The other reason is that the business may not fully understand the internet and marketing methods. Operating your business online requires a very different approach and some different strategy as you are appealing to a larger target audience. The difficult thing is this goes against traditional thinking. But times change and to be successful you must change with them.

There are several reasons that articles would be more effective than advertisements. The first being they are less expensive. You could get better results with a budget of less than R5000 than with a budget of R50 000. People tend to believe what they read in an article much more than what they read in an advertisement. An article can be a thousand words if needed to hold the prospects attention. You build credibility and elevate your reputation with prospects taking a greater interest in what you know. People do not see this as something they are forced to endure, thus subtly they are changing from readers to clients or buyers.

People are all about information. This is exactly what the internet is all about, the exchange and providing of information. A news Portal is a good example of taking the full idea of promoting thru articles. This will not only draw more visitors but it also allows the potential client to satisfy the need to have all the information they need.

The value of articles over standard advertisements to advertise and promote a business is just one example and one that should be explored. Take the chance and get into the game.

Participation is not expensive and very easy. Just that smallest presence will help readers get to know you, your business and your offers. A successful business is dependant on communication. By using articles, news and other information it is easy to increase your visibility and change readers to clients.

On the internet readers don’t want advertisements they want information.

Give them interesting and accurate information and you have the start of a long lasting relationship at a fraction of the cost of normal advertising

The internet is a place where people often throw darts into the darkness hoping that someday, somehow they’ll hit a bulls eye. Most people nurture a mistaken notion that huge amount of traffic can eventuate good business without paying any attention to what sort of people are coming to the website. This is the worst sort of Internet Marketing.

No matter how revolutionary your product or service is, unless it is backed by a well-thought-out Internet Marketing strategy, it is as good as being non-existent. You have got to be as sure as any of the conventional brick and mortar businesses.

Breaking the great wall of non-presence is the biggest challenge one faces while trying to set up an online business. When you set up your online shop, you don’t know them and they don’t know you. You need to make your presence felt; you need to set up an identity for yourself that tells your visitors that you are not an unemployed weirdo trying to dupe visitors from your dark and unheated basement. Your website should seem to represent a genuine business that can really deliver. How can you do that-

==> HAVE A WELL-MADE WEBSITE <==

A good website is quintessential to your online presence. It is your online office; people come there and draw an impression. Even the first glance can make or break a great business transaction. Your website should be neat and clean. It should be accessible to people of all abilities and it should have a well-structured navigation system. There should be no broken links and all the essential pages should be there.

==>> CONTENT IS, OF COURSE, KING <<==

If having a decent website is important, then so is having the right kind of content on your pages. As mentioned above, your website represents you amidst the din of the World Wide Web. Since you are not there to directly talk to your visitors, your website accomplishes that task. Make your content — whether graphic or textual — as convincing as you can. Utmost care should be given to the language and the tone to make sure your visitors get all the right information they need to take their visit to the next level.

==>> KEEP PERSISTENT CONTACT <<==

Establishing an identity takes time, and this is not just unique to the internet. Companies invest millions of dollars on establishing their brands. On the Internet, you need to establish your identity, you need your name to sound familiar, and you need to be there almost all the time. You should be accessible to your present and future customers and clients; you should always be in a constant conversation. A good way to carry out a regular conversation is publishing a regular newsletter (ezine) or blog where you post regular updates about your business.

Finally, although there are numerous “killer” methods being sold as the ubiquitous reports that claim to make you millions, there is no substitute for a thing called good old hard work. As in any form of business, hard work is need to build trust, to initiate a two-way communication, to render a countenance to your online presence your customers can relate to, and to deliver goods and services that set you on a path of long-term profitability.

If you are not already marketing your business online, it is time to start. Although there are a few exceptions, just about every business can benefit from online marketing. There are just so many advantages to this type of marketing.

First of all, it is extremely affordable to market your business online. Other advantages to marketing your business online include the ability to reach a large target audience, the ability to reach potential customers all over the world and the ability to customize the marketing for different sectors of the target audience.

The affordability of Internet marketing is one of many reasons why many business owners are turning to the Internet for advertising. Advertising online is incredibly affordable especially when you consider how many potential customers a business owner can reach with an online marketing campaign. Most methods of online advertising are quite affordable and some of them do not have any direct costs.

For example, you may choose to market your business online by participating in industry forums and posting links to your website whenever it is appropriate to do so. In this case the cost of creating and maintaining the website is insignificant in comparison to the number of potential clients you could reach through online marketing. Additionally, the costs associated with posting links to your website are incidental. You could consider the cost of having access to the Internet as part of the cost but you most likely require Internet access for other reasons as well so it is completely worthwhile.

Reaching a large target audience is another very worthwhile reason for marketing your business online. You may have spent a great deal of time and energy doing market research and determine who your target audience is. You may have also spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the best way to reach this audience.

This is a very sound marketing principle but as it applies to marketing on local television, radio and print media it only allows you to reach a limited audience. However, when you take your marketing to the Internet you automatically drastically increase your potential target audience because you now have the ability to reach members of your target audience around the world.

This ability to reach customers around the world is another major advantage to marketing your business online. Regardless of where you live and operate your business, you have the ability to reach those who have an interest in the products you sell or the services you provide no matter where they live. This makes it possible for you to do business with customers around the world.

Likewise the fact that the Internet is available 24 hours a day is also very beneficial to those who choose to market their products or services online. Shopping for products and services in person can be very difficult especially for individuals who work long hours or those who work unusual hours.

These working conditions make it difficult for these individuals to do business and make purchases of products and services they need during regular business hours. However, business owners who have an online presence are much more convenient because unlike stores and calling centers, the website never closes.

This convenience gives potential customers the ability to view products and services, compare these products and service to the ones offered by competitors and make a purchase at any hour of any day.

If you are a business owner who is reading this article and you do not already have a strong online presence, you need to immediately start learning more about the world of Internet marketing. This is so important because if your competitors are marketing online, you may find they are gaining a steady advantage and are becoming more appealing to potential customers.

Before too many of your potential customers become loyal customers of the competition it is time to start figuring out how you can market your business online and keep up with the competition

While more and more businesses takes their business online it’s amazing to see how they missing out on marketing because they don’t really understand the internet and marketing methods thereof.

Business owners are brainwashed into believing that advertising is the best method of marketing, partially because of the limited availability and high price of advertisement and otherwise because it was and is always the standard method of marketing.

On the internet things are very different and it’s quite possible that someone with a marketing budget of less than R5000 can achieve far better results than someone with a marketing budget of R50 000.

It is the results that count.

The value of articles over standard advertisements to advertise and promote a business is just one example and is far more effective for various reasons.

First, an article can contain 1000 or even more words, as compared to an advertisement, which is only a few seconds on a television screen or an often-overlooked few sentences or image buried in the depths of a newspaper.

Not only are these methods of advertising ridiculously over-priced, but they don’t hold the clout and proven results of articles as marketing method. With press releases, information and other articles, a marketer can hold a reader’s attention far longer than with a commercial or other advertisement, yielding far better results.

What many business owners don’t realize is that the internet is all about information and that visitors as well as search engines look for information and not advertisements.

Articles and information as method of publicity to promote a business and its products doesn’t have the forced connotation that many invoke when viewing an advertisement and is therefore far more effective.

With the News Portal as well as Town Portals for example, this concept is utilized to it’s full capacity by allowing business owners to promote their business via articles, news and information that will not only draw more visitors, but also satisfy their need for information and make them therefore much more open to trust and purchase from “advertisers”.

The internet is about information so give visitors the information they need in such subtle way that it will convert readers into clients. A successful business is al about communication and articles, news and information is therefore perfect to ease that important bridge between being a total stranger or client.