You need a simple starting point and following basic steps will help your efforts build long-term success. A list of people who have willingly subscribed to receive information from you can make income generation beyond possible if done right. But first you need to put yourself in a position to start building lists.

TOOLS

To minimize cost you can get by making one crucial investment. Investing in a quality autoresponder will only cost under twenty dollars a month but you can make that back right away. A quality autoresponder service will provide lead capture templates and tracking capabilities so make sure to look for those because that will save you both money and time.

ARTICLES

Writing 10 articles can help create a handful of ways to start your list building efforts and here are 3 ways to start doing that today:

1. Content -- providing quality content is essential to your business because people are looking for information when they surf the Internet and based on your niche having that information available to them is key. Writing 10 articles of at least 300 and 500 words can put you in a position to start creating other marketing systems. Keep in mind this is your content and you can do what you want with it. If you write it without copying someone else’s articles it’s YOUR CONTENT!

2. Publishing -- now that you have written the 10 articles it is time to put them to good use because now you have content to spread in various formats. Submit them to popular and high-ranking publishing sites and once approved add them to your blog. Also, link them to the very active social networks to increase traffic. You can also re-purpose the content into audio, pod cast or video content if you want to supercharge your traffic.

3. Email Marketing -- to build a list it’s always a good idea to offer prospects something free so they can subscribe. Using some of those articles to create a mini-report in PDF format will be a great start. Then you can use some of the article content to create a series of email messages. It will be a lot easier to build on content from 10 articles than just one or two.

It takes practice to write but if you aren’t taking action then obviously it is impossible to get any results. Begin learning from some of the most successful article marketers like Chris Knight, Jeff Herring, Josh Spaulding, Mike Long, Sean R. Mize or Travis Sago. Stick to the one whose style you can relate to the best and then start writing articles injected with your style while learning from the best.

How do you actually get the motivation to write an article?

1. Simplify the process -- just create a schedule and stick to it. Start with one article a day and make sure you do it! Choose a time where things are less hectic and find a quiet area to do your writing. Choose an attention grabbing headline and start out with some bullet points to work off of.

2. Practice makes perfect -- it is hard NOT to improve writing consistently if you are NOT a gifted writer. It’s only impossible NOT to succeed at something if you don’t attempt to do it until you get it right. Finding your writing style can be found through practice.

3. Acceptance -- it is impossible to believe everyone is going to like your writing. Your goal should be to write to a targeted audience and a segment of that group will gravitate towards you because at some level they can relate to you and your content.

Write an article instead of:

1. Checking Emails multiple times a day.
2. Eating that extra piece of cake.
3. Smoke Breaks a dozen times a day.

You get the picture! It’s all about time management and prioritizing the important things it takes to grow your Internet business and income.

Competing in today’s Internet business landscape you have to set yourself apart from your competitors and one of the best ways to do that is writing articles. Self-branding is a powerful tool because your article content will lead people to your promotions gradually.

Here are 3 reasons why writing articles will help you succeed online:

1. Branding -- what better platform is there to provide content regarding your experience and skills? Submitting your articles to popular online publishers will increase your visibility. You can also reuse those articles on your blog and other productive outlets, such as audio, PDF’s, sites, and video giving you a larger presence online.

2. Links -- having your articles linked from high-ranking publisher’s sites as well as other highly visited blogs will increase the popularity of your blog or site. All this is a great way to get higher rankings at the search engines and if you are on the first page it can bring in more visitors depending on the keywords used in their searches.

3. Traffic -- the ultimate goal for writing articles should be to generate traffic. Although the process is gradual it is an inexpensive way to attract targeted traffic. Quality content is important but contrary to what you may believe you are not expected to write a Pulitzer Prize winning article. Just make it easy to understand and provide substance.

Those succeeding with making money online and growing a successful Internet business don’t have everything in common but there is something that it’s hard to believe anyone would not agree on and that is to succeed you must keep things simple. Writing articles is no different.

Here are 3 keys to maximizing your article marketing in the most uncomplicated ways:

1. Daily -- if you were to write just one article a day by the end of the week you would have 5 articles unless you extend that to one on Saturday and Sunday you would then have 7, so multiplying that weekly, monthly, and yearly it becomes a healthy amount of articles.

2. Quality -- by keeping it simple you will produce more quality articles. There are many who will say to write a bunch of articles daily but you can end up writing some crappy articles if you do that. Start off by writing one a day and as it becomes much easier to write them then you can branch out into writing more of them on a daily basis but NEVER sacrifice quality.

3. Re-Purpose -- here is the icing on the cake. Reuse your articles to create other forms of valuable content such as e-Books, mini-reports, media, etc. In some cases you can create other articles from the same article as well. This can quickly become possible if you consistently write, at a minimum, an article per day.

Don’t be intimidated from writing articles because it is a very powerful marketing tool and it’s bad business to avoid doing it. You can always pay others to do it for you but I’m sure the last thing you are looking to do is spend money so below are 3 ways you can get your article writing off to a roaring start:

1. Go with the flow -- sometimes people can get bogged down trying to write the perfect article. If you write as you speak and think it should be a lot easier. Instead of trying to write like someone else just be yourself through your writing and you will notice a nice flow towards the result.

2. Learn from others -- find a few other article marketers and read their content. Don’t write like them but study their structure and learn how they make their articles educate and ultimately lead people to their websites. Don’t try reinventing the wheel, but do provide your own unique voice and people will read your stuff.

3. Practice makes perfect -- you hear this in any challenging platform. You must practice the art of “fill in the blank here” to reach perfection. Luckily, you don’t need to be perfect to write articles because not everyone is going to read your content or even like it but you should only be concerned with those who do, so write continuously and it will become easy as pie.

Here are 3 reasons why not marketing with articles is a huge mistake:

1. Branding -- writing articles and submitting them to high traffic publishers can multiply your traffic and more importantly it allows people to learn more about you and what you are offering without actually making any sales pitches. Using articles as educational and informative platforms will give you authority in the niche market you are involved in.

2. Product Creation -- the content from your articles becomes a valuable asset. This gives you full control of what you do with it and how you integrate it into other forms of content. You can create multiple streams of income by re-purposing your articles. You can turn them into audio downloads, e-books, mini-reports, pod casts or videos. Use your imagination and come up with some unique ways to expand the reach of your articles.

3. Traffic -- every business or person looking to the Internet for growing their business and income needs traffic! Quality content, especially those from articles, can drive a massive amount of visitors to your promotions. If your article becomes viral it can give you tons of traffic without having to spend the high costs of other well-known traffic generation techniques such as pay-per-click marketing.

If you are an entrepreneur and money is an obstacle to your promotional efforts learning the art of article marketing can benefit your Internet business for a very long time including the potential of increasing your authority in the niche you are doing business in.

Learn these 4 article marketing tips to help you along:

1. Write articles relevant to your niche -- the topics you write about should revolve around what you are selling but without the sales pitch. Inform your readers on subjects that educates them and solves any problems they are facing.

Remaining on course with the information you provide to your possible and future customers by educating them and having solutions to their problems will make it much easier for them to trust you and seek you out for more information.

2. Quality content -- submitting quality articles is essential to your article marketing strategies. Once you begin to neglect the substance that goes into the content you provide it will undermine the power it has.

Deliver well-written articles that are above average in content, so you can make an impression on your readers and entice other Internet marketers to use your articles as content in their blogs and websites.

3. Sales Pitches -- there is a right time to make a sales pitch, but not in your articles. We are given the opportunity to make our pitch in the resource box and by abiding to these rules you will be more successful.

The point of using article marketing in your promotional strategies is to educate, inform or solve a problem. You then can convince your reader to click on the link in the resource box where some forms of advertising is allowed.

4. Using the resource box to promote your message -- here is the place to make your message stand out and get the reader to take the next step by clicking on the link or links you have added to your resource box.

The resource box is the most powerful part of article marketing strategies that work and it is an opportunity to make your sales pitch in a very short amount of space. Offer something free to help them make the decision easier.

Just picture your message on one of those billboards you see while driving and translate that into a powerful message in your resource box to attract more readers to your site.