Writing content to help promote your small business site

One of the best ways to attract visitors to your website is by providing related sites with quality editorial relating to your subject area. Not only will this give you a chance to promote your service or business, but it can also indirectly aid your search engine promotion efforts via link popularity.

For example, the Bytestart website provides articles and resources for small businesses in the UK. There are a wealth of topics related to small business so there is no shortage of material to write articles on. The same is true for many other business areas whether your site is related to finance, travel or web design.

Most websites will happily exchange links for good quality articles

Article writing is easier if you are providing a service rather than a product, but if you are creative in your approach and write your articles clearly and concisely, other sites are more than willing to exchange content for links.

The best way to research sites which may be interested in quality editorial is to search on Google for 'submit article' + your subject area. For example, 'submit article web design'.

Make sure you visit any sites which regularly publish quality articles on your subject areas and find out their publishing terms. Chances are you will already be familiar with the key portals or news sites related to your area of expertise - email them to see if you can contribute editorial. The more established the publishing site the better.

Article submission and link popularity

You may well gain new visitors on the back of your article submission, but you're also likely to have the article linked to that site for some time which could help with your own site's page rank. This is an added bonus of article submission.

Once the article page on the publisher's site is indexed by the major search engines (Google being of paramount importance), the link from the article back to your own site will be factored in to your site's link popularity algorithm. The higher the Google Pagerank of the publisher's site, the more important this backlink will be considered for your own site's importance. So, look out for well laid out and indexed publisher sites for your content.

Remember at all times that there is a well-established trade-off between the author and the publisher. In exchange for a well written and researched article, any publisher should be more than willing to publish a link and summary back to the author's site - it's a fair exchange.

In order to get your article(s) published - there are several universal rules you should take into account:

Tips for writing articles for publication

• Aim to write between 700 and 800 words - this seems to be the typical length required by most publishers. Check first though - some sites prefer more or less words per article.
• Try to add a new angle to the subjects already submitted to the site.
• Make sure the article is checked for spelling and the grammar (use MS Word).
• Break the article up into meaningful sections, using headers for each section.
• Don't try to promote your services too much - this will put readers and editors off. They want quality editorial, not a sales pitch.
• Ask the editor(s) if there are any subjects they'd particularly like you to write about - keep in their good books.
• Make sure you retain all rights to your article. Some sites may want ownership of your work, but most don't. Make sure also that you can distribute any article to several publishers (don't spread yourself too thin though).

• In return for the content, you should be able to submit a link at the end, either in an 'about the author' section, or just at the end of the article. Use this opportunity to add a decent link back to your site.

The key to promoting your website using articles is in the win-win situation between the author and the publisher. Both sides need to benefit. The article must be well researched, relevant and readable.

In return, you should get some traffic from the link in the article, and once Google & co. index the article, you'll have a new backlink to your own site which will aid your link popularity. The more articles and sites you publish to, the more links you'll get back, and your site's reputation will be enhanced by the editorial you have written.