Five Great Ideas For Your Next Article
by Michael Southon
It's amazing how quickly free articles can generate traffic - my traffic sometimes triples within 24 hours of releasing a new article.
But if free articles are your main marketing technique, you may run into a problem - how to come up with new ideas.
Yesterday an interviewer asked me in an email: "How does someone come up with topic ideas? What do you do, for example?"
This was my reply:
The key to coming up with topic ideas for your articles is to be very aware of what you yourself are learning. As you know, e-commerce is a huge area and we're all learning new things every day. Every time you learn something new, write a short article about it. Because there are almost certainly other people who are going to have to learn what you just learned and your article is going to make it much easier for them to get that information.
The other thing to do is pay close attention to the questions people ask you. For example, I had a question last week from a man in the UK who wanted to know how to use articles to promote an affiliate link. So I answered his question and then wrote an article titled: 'How To Boost Your Affiliate Sales With Free Articles'.
You may notice that I'm using this technique here. Yesterday someone asked me a question and today I'm writing an article about it. It's that simple!
Here are five great ideas for your next article:

(1) Write a Book/Product Review
This is an endless source of new articles. Every time you see a new eBook, write to the author and ask if you can have a 'review copy' (this is also an excellent way to get free copies of the latest new eBooks).

(2) Do an Interview
Contact a well-known figure on the Internet and ask him or her if you could interview them by email. There's an art to doing a good interview and the best way to learn is to look at other interviews.

(3) Write a Business News Article
Subscribe to one of the Internet News services, clipping agencies, or Press Release services and use the information you receive to write articles on the latest developments in your industry field.

(4) Write an Anecdote
Have you had a strange or frustrating experience on the Internet, or have you made a big mistake that you learned from (people love reading about other people's mistakes). Write about it!

(5) Write a 'How To' article
These kind of articles are always in demand. And it doesn't have to be very long - five tips that you've picked up in the last month on some aspect of running an online business. Maybe you learned how to choose a web host, how to choose a list server, how to deal with spam, how to get better results from your Newsletter, or how to succeed with affiliate programs? Why not share those tips with others?
I hope these ideas have given you food for your next article and the next surge of free traffic to your website!