Your articles serve many purposes, such as establishing you as an expert, pre-selling products and even helping to build relationships with your prospects. But you can also use them to drive traffic to your site when you take the time to optimize them for the search engines.

Here’s the 3S Strategy for creating and distributing optimized articles:

• Search
• Sprinkle
• Share

Read on for the details…

Step #1: Search

Your first step is to search for the keywords your market is already using to find information in your niche. You do this by using a keyword tool (such as Google’s free keyword tool, WordTracker.com or even Market Samurai).

All you have to do is enter in a broad niche-relevant search term like "homeschooling," "organic gardening" or "golf." The tool will then offer you suggestions for related search terms which you can use to expand your list of keywords. In most cases, you’ll generate a list of hundreds if not thousands of possible keywords.

What you’re searching for are longtail keywords – these are phrases that are typically four or more words long. The key is that they have very little competition in the search engines, which means you can rank well for them.

Tip: Many keyword tools check the competition for you. For example, WordTracker offers a KEI (keyword effectiveness index) value, which looks at the number of searches against how many other websites are indexed for that keyword. The higher the KEI value, the better chance you have of ranking well. Look for words that have a KEI value of at least 100 – but the higher the better.

Step #2: Sprinkle

Once you’ve compiled a list of longtail keywords, your next step is to create content around these keywords. You can optimize each article for two keyword phrases if you like, but generally it’s easier to optimize for just one.

The key is to not stuff your article with your keywords, otherwise the search engines may rank it lower (rather than higher). As such, include your keyword in the title of your article as well as about two to three times for every 100 words of content.

Example: Let’s say your keyword is "hydroponic vegetable gardening indoors." Your article might look like this:

Title: "Tips and Tricks for Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors"
Intro: include keyword at least once.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #1: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #2: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Hydroponic Vegetable Gardening Indoors Tip #3: explain tip and include keyword once more.
Closing: Summarize the article and include keyword once more.

Step #3: Share

Once your article is complete, it’s time to share it by distributing it as widely as possible. Don’t worry about so-called "duplicate content." The search engines won’t punish you if they find your articles in more than one place. They only knock you down a bit if they find your content in more than one place within your own domain (i.e., not on other sites).

You do this by:

• Posting the article on your blog
• Offering it as a guest post on your JV partner’s blog (or newsletter)
• Create a Squidoo.com or HubPages.com page around it
• Post it on social networking sites like your MySpace.com blog or Facebook.com page
• Submit it to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, IdeaMarketers.com, ArticleValley.com, GoArticles.com and Buzzle.com

That’s it. You too can get your articles to pull in search engine traffic for you when you use the Search, Sprinkle and Share system.

Your next step is easy — take action by searching for your keywords to find joint venture partners.

Just in case you stumbled on this post (and you haven’t signed up for the full, free course), sign up below. All I need to get you started is your first name and email address.

Tip #2 — Understand That People Are More Likely To Buy From Those They Trust

You’ve probably noticed that it can be difficult to get new customers to buy from you. Some people simply will not buy from those they’ve never heard of and don’t have a relationship with. You will usually have to “presell” to them before they will make a purchase. This is especially true since identity theft and fraud have become more prevalent.

The good news is that people will join your list because they view it as a lower risk than making a purchase. All they need to do is hand over their e-mail address and they are “in.” This gives you the opportunity to gain their trust and build a
relationship that can lead to repeat sales down the road.

Want to learn more about list building? Check out List and Traffic.

I’m going to give you — literally — 101 tips on building a responsive email marketing list. That is to say, I will help you build a list of ready, willing, and able prospects!

How does that sound?

If you’re the impatient type, fill out the form below and I’ll send you the whole list in one big file.

Otherwise, just sit back and relax. Take these in as they come along, at the frequency of one or two a week.

*** Here’s your first one ***

Tip #1 — Build Your Own Business
While there is a lot to be said for getting to the top of the search engines and advertising to promote your business, there’s nothing like having your own list. A list is something that you control at all times. You control its size, your relationship
with members, and even how much money you make.

By having a list, you are building your business on solid ground.

That’s not to say that search engine traffic isn’t wonderful and you should quit advertising. However, developing a list of leads or customers can be worth much more to you in the long run when combined with both of those methods of traffic.

If you need a killer email list manager, look no further than Aweber. It’s economical, reliable, and easy to use!

One of the first things you’ll want to do if you’re serious about successfully running (i.e., earning a ton of money online) an online business is to begin using an autoresponder service or program. They come in two basic flavors: Hosted and Install-yourself.

A hosted solution, like from AWeber, has all of the functionality built-in on their own systems. They install, configure, upgrade, and maintain the software and databases that you use when you create an account.

An “install yourself” solution is just what it sounds like: YOU install, configure, upgrade, and maintain software and databases on your own system. It’s cheaper in the short-run because you can do all this, but in the long-run, it can become an onerous burden.

I wholeheartedly endorse AWeber, but there are a ton of other services out there that are similar (just break open a google search and find dozens).

For a really quick primer on how to set up an autoresponder that is serviced by somebody else (a hosted solution), pick up a copy of this report, called How to Set Up Your Autoresponder.

In future posts, I’ll show you how it’s done. You’ll just get the information a little at a time, not all at once. The choice is yours.

As you know, the “money is in the list.” Having an email list is like having a Rolodex that you can refer to any time you want to make some extra cash (is there such thing as “extra cash”?); you can “sell” to it any time you want.

Of course, the main purpose of having a list is to interact and build a relationship with each of your list subscribers. Here are a few rules to live by when corresponding with your subscribers:

• Always use a double-optin method, like AWeber uses.
• Build a relationship with your subscribers first; sales and profits come later. You have to get their trust first. How do you do this? Offer value.
• Make constant contact with your subscribers. Don’t leave them hanging. Offer free reports, refer them to valuable information on the web (it can be links to your web properties or others’ — it doesn’t matter as long as you’re offering value (there’s that word again).
• Requests to unsubscribe must be fulfilled right away. Don’t email the requester with the question, “Why?” You can put a text box on the unsubscribe page asking why, but don’t EVER ask Why? after somebody has unsubscribed.
• In terms of offering value, try attaching PDFs to your emails. I have found higher open rates on emails I send that have attachments. I send out free reports all the time.
• Send people to your sites and blogs through your emails. There, you can put up offers that people may want to read about.
• DON’T pepper your subscribers with offers. I will unsubscribe right away if I get 2 or 3 offers in a row from a single online marketer.

I personally use AWeber. I love the services, reliability, and support they offer at a very good price ($19 a month, which is a deal, especially if you consider how much time would be stolen from your day if you had to do all of this manually).

However, there are many solutions out there that offer similar functionality; some are in the form of software you have to install on your own domain to solutions similar to AWeber.

Either way, you need an autoresponder. It makes life so much easier, plus it gives you yet another avenue to connect with your readers. Plus, if you build a quality list, you can market to them in subtle ways while providing value that they expect.

Related Post: Six Steps to Six Figures with List Marketing