You may know that I have once again challenged myself to write one hundred articles over a one hundred day time span. I first did this in the spring of 2007 as a way to turn myself into a writer. That time it only took me 78 days to complete my challenge back then, and I have gone on to write more than 1,600 articles since that time.

This time the challenge was more difficult for me for a variety of reasons, including the fact that I’m in the middle of writing my next book on becoming an online entrepreneur. You can see my other books here if this is of interest to you. Time management when it comes to writing is crucial to your success, but the creative energy required is another story.

As far as the article writing challenge, I was so excited when my friend Susanne Myers decided to step up and join me this time. Susanne is one of my smartest friends, as well as a gifted marketer. She’s been using article marketing to build her business for years. Here is an article she wrote recently on the topic of autoresponders:

The Magic Of AWeber – Why AWeber Is One Of The Best Autoresponders Out There
By Susanne Myers

If you read my blog, this won’t come as a surprise to you. I love AWeber and have been using them as my autoresponder service since 2004. I have quite a few lists and some of them have well over 30,000 subscribers on them. They are responsible for a big chunk of my monthly income and I wouldn’t trust anyone other than AWeber with those lists. Here are a few reasons why AWeber is one of the best autoresponders out there.

It’s Easy – Lots Of Tutorial

It is very easy to get started with AWeber. Once you sign up, you’ll find plenty of tutorials on how to do just about anything with their service. They’ll walk you through setting up your first list, creating your first optin form and plugging it into your website. Some of the tutorials are presented as a step-by-step wizard, others are text and of course there are also plenty of “how-to” videos. On top of it, I’ve found their customer service helpful and ready to walk me through just about anything I can’t figure out on my own.

Plus since AWeber is so well known in our industry, you’ll also find plenty of video tutorials on YouTube. Don’t forget to check there if you get stuck somewhere along the way.

It’s Inexpensive To Get Started

When I started out building websites and email lists, my budget was almost $0. I didn’t have hundreds of dollars to spend on my online business, so AWeber’s $1 trial was a perfect fit. It allowed me to get comfortable with the service and start building my list without much of an expense. After that it didn’t take me long to make more than the $20 per month fee from my growing lists.

Sign up for the introductory trial and get to work right away. Make it a goal to build a list of 100 subscribers as fast as possible and start monetizing that first list. It won’t take you long to make AWeber pay for itself by following this strategy. Keep growing your list and you’ll be profitable in no time at all.

Excellent Deliverability

The best and biggest list won’t do you much good if your readers don’t get your emails. It’s hard to make sure your website and email stay white-listed and don’t get redirected into spam folders. AWeber does an excellent job at making sure they have high delivery rates. They consistently rank among the highest rates in the industry, making them a great choice.

Ready to get started with your own list?

Ready to build your own list? Sign up for a free 7-day ecourse on getting started with list building at http://www.affiliateecourse.com/listbuilding

This is an example of how to properly reprint other people’s articles as a way to connect with them and to add content to your own sites. By my publishing of this article I get more content for my site and Susanne benefits by the exposure to my readers who may not know her already. Be sure to read the TOS (Terms of Service) carefully before you use anyone else’s content on your sites or in your ezine.

The article writing challenge continues through June 21, and I encourage you to write and publish more of your own articles as you build your business.

Exactly five years ago I challenged myself to write one hundred articles in one hundred days. I did this because I had come online the year before and soon realized that I would need to do lots of writing in order to be successful with my new business venture. I had been writing during that first year, but it was sporadic and the quality was quite mediocre. I needed to kick it up a notch so that the writing would come more easily and I could get my message out to the world. That’s when I decided to challenge myself. It didn’t take me a hundred days to write those 100 articles; they were all written and published by the end of 78 days. It was a wonderful feeling and I credit that self-imposed challenge with turning me into a writer.

Article marketing has been very good to me over these last five years. I now have more than sixteen hundred articles published on the major article directories, which has built my list with targeted prospects and given my sites a higher ranking on Google and the other search engines. I have also repurposed this content into a variety of formats, including short reports, audio recordings, and several books, both paperback and on Kindle.

I teach a very simple method for writing articles that get results. I call this technique the 5 Paragraph Model™ and you can read about how to do it in this post I wrote on article marketing strategies. It works for me, as well as the hundreds of people who have now gone through my training on this topic.

To celebrate my five years of article writing and marketing I am challenging myself to write another hundred articles over the next three months. I find that these challenges are always an excellent way to get everyone involved. Will you join me for this challenge? How may I help you to write more articles that will build your online business quickly?

A mentor is described as a trusted guide or advisor who is sometimes older but always more experienced, and is willing to help another individual develop his or her knowledge and skills. The history of this dates back to the days of Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus’ friend was named Mentor, and he went to Troy to teach his son, Telemachus. A mentor is a teacher, in the true sense of the word.

My very first business mentor was Raymond Aaron, whom I now consider to be one of my closest friends and allies on the Internet and in my life. He has always been confident in his own expertise, and brings as much commitment to our relationship as I do. Without this expert mentoring and guidance I would never have had the courage to change my life in the ways that bring me so much joy today. I now also have several people in my life whom I consider to be my business and personal mentors. I look up to them and continue to grow and change based on our interactions.

You most likely have already experienced the supportive feeling of having a mentor, even if it was not a formal relationship. Think of a person in your life who was encouraging to you, someone you looked up to and respected, or someone you aspired to be like. This may have been one or both of your parents, or the parent of a close friend. It could have been a teacher, a coach, or a supervisor or boss at your job. Mentors are special people who give us examples to model ourselves after, and many times, they are able to guide us specifically with a skill set we need in order to be successful.

So, what’s the difference between a mentor and a coach?

Coaching has been defined by the International Coach Federation to be “partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential.” This concept first began to take off in the 1990s. Coaches most often work independently from organizations and help individuals, teams in a workplace, or specific groups of people to improve their relationships and grow stronger. This is different from mentoring in that mentors are more likely to spend more quality time with individuals with whom they share a common bond or goal.

A coach, unlike a mentor, does not

So much has been written about how to write an eBook, but not nearly as much on how to market and sell your eBook once you have finished writing it. After you have completed your writing, you need to think about monetizing your efforts online. There are three primary ways to do this in the best possible way. You will either set up your own website where you can sell your eBook, publish it for the Amazon Kindle or Barnes & Noble Nook, or simply give it away for free as a way to build an interested and highly responsive list.

You may have been under the impression that having a traditional publisher would mean that you would not have to market and sell your own writing, but nothing could be further from the truth. You are the one who is ultimately responsible for selling your eBook or paperback book, and you will need to market every day using the techniques and strategies that have been proven to work.

Start by setting up a simple website where you can sell your information to people around the world. This is like having a store that is open 24/7/365. Make sure to include an optin box so that you will build your list while you are going through this process. You will need a free giveaway to encourage visitors to sign up, so you will want to prepare a short report, checklist, or audio recording to use as your free giveaway. You may also give away a free chapter of your book to entice people to opt in with their name and email address.

Publishing to Kindle or Nook is also a great marketing strategy. You can have your eBook for sale on your own site, as I mentioned above, and also include it for sale as a Kindle or Nook version to increase your visibility online. Remember that Amazon is the largest marketplace in the world, which means that they are doing regular advertising that will help you to sell more every day.

Another way to approach this business is to give away your eBook. This entails including a ‘call to action’ to give readers a reason to spend money with you or further engage you after they have read what you have written about your niche topic.

No matter which of these models you choose, know that writing and selling your writing is an excellent way to make money on the Internet that can also lead to more opportunities in the future.

I highly recommend the all new 7 Day eBooks training course just released by Jim Edwards. This is a comprehensive training, with over 500 pages of step by step guidance on writing AND selling your eBook on the Internet, no matter what your niche.

This is a guest post from Susanne Myers. Her site is www.DailyAffiliateTasks.com

Article marketing is a great way to get targeted traffic to your website and establish yourself as an expert. And if you do things right, you can resuse these articles in a few different ways, getting even more traffic.

Strategic Planning Of Your Articles

To get the most leverage out of each article, it pays to spend a little bit of time planning things. I like to write my articles in batches of 4 to 10 related ones. Not only does it make it easier to write them, you can also later repackage them into a short report. I also like to think about what I want to promote and link to in my author resource box. Ideally the article will be something my readers will need to know before they need the information I’m linking to in my author bio.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say I want to promote the following blog post that’s a review of a Nicole Dean’s Blog Tour Guide. Some of my article topics may be:

• What is Guest Blogging
• How To Get Started With Guest Blogging
• How To Write A Great Guest Blog Post
• How To Get Your Guest Blog Posts Published

Notice how I can easily mention my blog post at the end of each article and how this set of articles could be combined into a short report down the road.

Craft Your Resource Box – Test and Adjust

Speaking of resource boxes, with proper planning as outlined above, the resource box will almost write itself. Let’s go back to the examples above. For any of those articles, I could include something like this at the end:

And now I would like to invite you to read more about guest blogging and how to go about making the most of every single post published. The “secret ingredients” are revealed in small info product that’s responsible for much of my own online success. Start by reading my review of “Nicole Dean’s Blog Tour Guide”.

Susanne Myers – www.AffiliateTreasureChest.com

I want you to notice two things… the first is a smooth transition from the content of the article into the author resource box. The second thing is

Are you using article marketing to build your marketing funnel? Article marketing is one of the best long-term methods for getting your information and message out to the world. Once you discover how powerful this marketing method can be in driving highly targeted traffic to your blog and other sites you will want to know more about how to do this to build your own business and increase your visibility. Think about the people you want to reach, the sites you want to send them to, and how you will then follow up once your readers have joined your list and become a part of your community.

Write your articles with the end in mind. What I mean by this is that you will want to use the words and phrases your target market is already using when you choose your article titles and main points. I will use real estate investing as my example here. If your goal is to sell your prospects into a membership site on real estate investing, you will want to use a phrase such as how to invest in real estate when writing your article. Teach the reader as much as you can about the benefits of investing in real estate so that they will be even more likely to click on your click when they get to the end of your article.

The key is to then send your readers to a site where they can opt in to receive a free report or audio recording on how to get started as a real estate investor. Keep it simple so that they can see what information you have to offer, give you their name and email address, and receive your free information immediately when they check their email. You will have taken then from reader to visitor to prospect in a period of just minutes.

You must then follow up on the promise you made when you first wrote the article. You shared details on your topic, in this case real estate investing, and then offered more information about this through your website. Finally, ask them to buy

I attend many events each year, and I’d love to meet you in person. I find that connecting with people at live events is the very best way to get to know them, and I’m sure you would agree.

If you want to meet Connie Ragen Green during 2011, here are some of the places I will be:

UnSeminar 9 – This is an event hosted by Pat O’Bryan, creator of the ‘Portable Empire’ coaching program. This is the third time I have spoken at this amazing event, and there will be another one announced in the near future.

August 18-22 – NAMS (The Niche Affiliate Marketing System) This event is in Atlanta, and I’d love to meet you there. Go here to sign up, and use the code 100special to save $100 off the cost of the event.

November 11-13 – the Armand Live event – this will be in San Francisco this time, and you can sign up through my link here.

Jim Boat Caribbean Cruise – December 1-8 – I’ll be speaking on the topic of ‘Targeted Traffic to Your Sites Through Article Marketing and Content Syndication’. Contact me for more information on attending.

I will be adding two more events to this list, but I have not confirmed them yet. I always say that I would not have the business I have today if I had not started attending live events in 2008. What about you? Have you started attending conferences and workshops to build your online business?

I seem to answer questions regularly on the topic of article marketing tips for building a profitable business. My students want to know if things have changed since I came online in 2006, and if it’s still important for them to write articles on a regular basis. Their basic question is whether I would do things any differently if I were just starting out with an online business today.

The answer is a resounding Yes! What was important when I was new online is still important today. It all gets down to three areas we must focus on, and those are:

1. Credibility – I think of this as establishing who you are and what you have to offer others as a part of your online business. Credibility is best established by writing about your topic to share your expertise and knowledge with your target audience and future prospects.
2. Visibility – This is the process of getting your name out in a big way on the Internet. The idea is to be so visible that people see you everywhere.
3. Profitability – Monetizing what we do online is the step that turns our passion from a hobby into a real business. In the offline world they refer to this as a ‘going concern’.

You can see that article writing and marketing fits in well with all three of these key areas. By spending some time each day to get your writing out to others in the form of blog posts, articles that can be submitted to the various directories, short reports, eBooks, books for the Kindle, and traditional books, it won’t take long before you have both the credibility and visibility in your niche to make you a true player in your field. It is then up to you to offer products and courses so that you can start earning the money you deserve.

Start by making a schedule of when and what you will write. I write every day, but it isn’t always articles I am working on. For example, during the past couple of months I’ve been finishing my latest book – Huge Profits With Affiliate Marketing - so my time and effort with writing each day went into that project.

These article marketing tips will change what you do online forever. You can see that it is worthwhile to write every day to get your name out there as soon as possible. Combine that with audio recordings, video, and other types of marketing to turn your knowledge and information into a profitable online business.

Article marketing helped me to build my business on the Internet, but this marketing strategy has changed quite a bit since it was first introduced to me in 2006. Back then we all wrote 250 word articles, and typically made a list of 10 tips to share in the article.

This always seemed unprofessional to me, but I wanted to get into the habit of writing each day and this seemed like a simple way to get started. You can take a look at my articles from 2006 and 2007 and see what I mean.

In 2008 I changed how I approached article writing and marketing. I began lengthening my articles – they now each have four hundred words or more – and also I improved the quality. I developed my 5 Paragraph Model, something I continue to teach my students. Each article shares 3 focus points with the reader, and expands each focus point in greater detail. The result is an article that is worthy of publication, and one that presents you as a professional in your niche.

I also began using an article distribution service to get the most leverage out of everything I was writing. This is quite different from the article directories, which simply house your articles and allow anyone to scrape the content for their own use. The distribution service I recommend is Submit More Articles (my affiliate link).

Every article I write begins with my original idea, and then becomes the content I can use for blog posts, short reports, teleseminars, webinars, e-courses, Kindle books, traditional books, and courses I teach. Repurposing what we write turns our ideas into a lucrative business online.

It used to be that everyone talked about writing eBooks, but you don’t hear as much about that these days. Are people still writing them, or have we all moved on to something new and different to get started online and build our online business? The answer is that eBooks are just as important as they ever were when it comes to publishing your content to sell online. In addition, there are now even more ways to extend the life of your eBook and make it an even more profitable stream of income for years to come. Selling your eBook online will build your business quickly.

Think about your eBook as just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to building your online business. In fact, plan on writing several of these over time, in every area that you have knowledge in and want to build both a list and a stream of income with for yourself. By having a plan as to how you will set all of this up, you will be able to make this a long-term business instead of something that will disappear in just a year or so.

Repurpose everything you write. If your eBook is already written,