I have come across a new health and fitness articles directory.  While there are many article submission directories, this one focuses only on health, fitness and nutrition. While I think article marketing is great no matter what directory you use, I noticed that the bigger directories build page rank yet send very few visitors back to my blog.  I also found that many of the big article directories contain very spammy articles that don’t even attract readers.  I think niche article directories will be the new wave of article marketing since they can build page rank and send a stream of targeted traffic.

Basically article submission helps your promote your blog in two ways.  It builds a link back to your blog or website.  Most article directories let you do this by including links in the article you submit to them.  You can just have those links pointing back to your own site.  Building these so called back links is great for increasing your blogs search engine rankings which just means more search engine traffic.  Article submission also helps you get visitors to your blog or website.  Most article directories attract lots of traffic and many of the readers of your articles will click your article’s links and end up right back on to your blog or site.

I’ve always been a simple kind of guy.  I never really liked things that are too fancy, too complicated or too complex.  When I buy a new gadget I don’t go for the fancy ones that can do everything, I just go for the ones that satisfy my basic needs.  I found in the past that buying a gadget with 20 extra features I don’t need often makes the gadget more complicated to use.  From a marketing prespective features sell.  The more features you add the more money you can ask for.  However I’ve found that from my own experience simplicity is king.  Simplicity is efficient, fast, and straight to the point.

Today I’m having an “off day”.  For one it’s a Monday which might have to do with it.  But in general I notice that every week I have at least one or two off days.  Off days are those days when you don’t feel like getting out of bed, don’t feel like getting any work done, don’t feel like working out etc.  The only thing you might feel like doing is watching TV or movies but even that gets boring

Learning to manage an off day is important because if you don’t you could easily get stuck in a squence of lazy days.  Basically on an off day one just needs to go about their day as you normally would.  They wont feel like it, everything will feel like a drag but they need to do it anyways.  They just gotta push through it whether they feel like it or not.  When is your off day?

This is a great technique that I learned about from other bloggers.  Basically you use google blog search to find blogs that cover simillar topics to the ones you write about on your blog.  Pick a post they wrote and write your opinion on it, be honest, and if you don’t agree with their views state that in your post.  In your post make sure you link to their post, and also ping it (or do a trackback) if you can.  That way they will see your post and probably write about it on their blog linking to your post.  Their readers will be checking out your blog and will often become regular readers of your posts.

Another quick tip for you is to use link building services.

Choose a link building service from a company that has an amazing track record of successful online promotions.

Starting a company can be a challenge.  In fact most startup companies fail or go bankrupt within the first year or two.  I’ve always been fascinated with startups.  In fact at one point I even had a blog where I focused specifically on web startups.  Since then I’ve gotten interested in how to start a successful business in general.  Through all of my research, experience, and talks with successful startup creators, I came down to the same conclusion.

The secret to startup success is hard work.  I know it’s obvious yet it’s easier said than done.  Web startups are a good example.  Many entrepreneurs who start a successful web startup often work 16 hour days for the first year or two.  Of course when their startup takes off it easily turns into the next google, youtube, or facebook and is worth millions if not billions.  At that point if the entrepreneur wants to retire for the rest of their life and live on an island somewhere they can afford it.  Of course many do take time off but they ofter go on to starting their next company.  Why?  Because vacationing is only fun for a month, two or six after that it gets boring.

So how can you work hard on growing your business?  Remember you wont have to work hard for the rest of your life, but you need to work hard to get your startup company off the ground.