This concern is amplified by the increasing number of tools available to create alternate versions of your articles so the same one won’t be posted everywhere.

The Truth

The truth is, though, that you won’t be penalized for having identical articles around the web. The “duplicate content penalty” refers to duplicate content within your site. Even then, you’re unlikely to have a problem unless you’re trying to game the search spiders. Search engine penalties are reserved for sites trying to trick the search engines and very few average sites ever experience such a penalty.

What will be the effect on your Google search results if you have the same article posted to 30 different articles directories? Well, all the sites may not show up in the search results.

Remember what Google’s goal is: to return to searchers as many of the most relevant sites related to the search term they entered as it can. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to return 30 pages with the exact same article! So Google will filter out some of the duplicate pages from the search results.

Should You Be Concerned?

But that’s OK! As long as one of your article pages shows up fairly high in the rankings for the search term, the searcher may well see it and click to your article. And in many cases, there will be multiple links to versions of your articles.

Remember too, that even the sites with your article that get filtered from showing up in the search engine results are still contributing to the list of links pointing back to your site. You still get credit for that with the search engines even if they choose not to display that site in the search engine results.

And, of course, humans who browse or search directly at these sites can still find and read your article and click through to your site.

A Strategy to Consider…

There is one strategy you may wish to adopt if you publish your articles on your own site as well as elsewhere on the web. You may wish to publish on your site first and wait just a bit to publish to the other sites. The search engines will give some extra priority to the site that they believe is the original site for the content, and that site is more likely to show up in search engine results.

So, if the search engine spider finds the content on your site and later finds it elsewhere, your site will be considered the originator of the content and will likely get more weight in the search engine results than those sites with the content it found afterward.

While it may be slightly preferable to publish to your site first so it’s more likely to not get filtered out of search engine results, it’s not the end of the world if your site doesn’t show up. As long as other sites with your article are listed, searchers can read one of those instances and still click through to your site from your author’s box.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that you can feel comfortable publishing identical versions of articles both on your site and to article directories and ezine publishers. If you want to take extra care, publish to your site long enough before publishing elsewhere to allow the spider to find your instance first.

The most important point is to publish your articles in as many high quality places as you can! The good it will do your business in terms of visibility, perception of expertise, new people clicking through to your site, and incoming links for the search engine spiders greatly outweighs any downsides.

Typically, members pay a monthly fee for information and/or support. The deliverable can be as simple as a digital report each month, or as involved as a package of materials, teleclasses, and one on one coaching. Some high end memberships even include live meetings. I’ve seen memberships costing from $10/month to $297/month and more for “platinum” levels.

I think memberships are great for both providers and members when the content is high quality. In fact, I’m preparing one myself that will launch in a month or so. (Stay tuned…)

There’s a technique being used to enroll members, though, that I’m not so keen on. I’ve seen it employed by a number of internet marketers lately and actually seen it taught by one marketer I admire.

The practice I’m referring to is known as “forced continuity”. It usually looks something like this: You receive an email (or dozens of them) pulling you to a site offering some amazing content for a pittance – often just shipping and handling. Either at the bottom of the first sales page or at the top of the order page, you’re told that part of getting this content involves becoming a member of an ongoing program and you will be charged monthly. If you want the aforementioned amazing content, you must join this membership. That’s the “forced” aspect of it.

Of course, you can cancel the membership at any time after you place the order. The marketers are betting in the best case, you’ll find the membership content valuable enough to continue, or in the worst case that they’ll get several month’s payments before you remember to cancel.

This example reflects the “ethical” version of forced continuity. Some less than stellar characters notify you that you’ve been enrolled in a membership after you’ve paid. Clearly, this is not cool.

But I think even the “ethical” version is uncool. It feels like bait and switch advertising to me. All the promotions and the bulk of the sales letter is talking about the amazing content for an incredibly low price. (That should be our first clue, right?) It’s only after you’ve gotten excited about the amazing content that you learn about the membership and the marketers are hoping you’re excited enough to go through with the sale anyway by then.

I’d rather see what marketer Jimmy Brown calls “persuaded continuity”. He suggests selling an inexpensive product upfront, like the other marketers. After the sale, on the product download page, is where customers find out that due to their purchase, they’re entitled to a free trial membership. But they are NOT automatically enrolled. They have the choice to join or not.

So, while visitors are initially attracted by the low price product, they are only introduced to the membership after purchasing the product, and it is their choice whether or not to accept the free trial.

Jimmy’s purpose is still to get people to sign up for memberships, but his preferred method is to get their attention with the lead product and then persuade them to join the membership rather than to get people excited about the lead product and then threaten to take it away unless they join the membership.

The persuasion method feels cleaner to me. It’s less coercive, and let’s be honest. If your membership offers great content, you should be able to sell it on its merits without needing to “force” people into it. By offering a free trial, members can check it out and will stick with it if they find it worth the money.

I also believe you will build a much stronger relationship with members who have freely chosen to join than those who have been coerced into joining. It’s better business and better karma!

I’d be interested to know if any of you have run across these forced continuity offers. If so, did you buy the product and join the membership? How did you feel about this technique? If you didn’t buy, why not? Leave a comment and let me know.

• posting a blog entry
• sending an ezine or newsletter
• article marketing
• using Google AdWords
• search engine optimization (SEO)
• creating more incoming links to our web site

There’s a key strategy that’s more important than any of these. To be effective, they need to be done consistently over a period of time. Not one of these strategies will help your business if you focus on it once and then move on to another strategy.

So the most important aspect to marketing your business is to develop a system – a routine that helps you implement your chosen strategies consistently over time to yield the results you’re looking for.

As an example, I’ll share my weekly marketing routine. It includes several, but not all, of the marketing strategies listed above.

Monday: Post a blog entry.

This adds content to my site, and since my blog software automatically “pings” several dozen blog directories, links to the post on my site will be created in these directories. Also, I’ve set up a system that emails each blog post to my subscriber list, so this one action is leveraged in several ways.

Tuesday: Submit an article.

I use a service that submits my article to hundreds of article directories and ezine publishers. And the article is usually a slightly modified version of the blog post from Monday, further leveraging that content.

Wednesday: Add a message to all appropriate autoresponders.

I have various prospect and customer autoresponder lists. Often, we set up autoresponders with some initial messages, and broadcast messages to them when we have an announcement to make. But that leaves long periods of time when we’re not communicating with the people on these lists at all. So Wednesday’s task is to add a new message to the end of as many autoresponder series as appropriate. This message might sell the “original” product to a prospect list, or cross-promote another product to a prospect or customer list.

Thursday: Build joint venture or affiliate relationships.

This task could be creating a new affiliate resource or touching base with a JV partner. It could include research or initial contact with a potential JV partner. Or it might be writing a new JV partner agreement. The point is to support and build better relationships with those who have agreed, or might agree, to help sell my products.

Friday: Post comments on selected blogs and forums.

Using a list of blogs and forums with topics related to my business, find some posts where I can add a useful comment. I also use Google Alerts and some software to find additional appropriate blogs and forums to post comments to. This practice is beneficial in two ways. First, people who read these posts and find my comment valuable may decide to click my link and visit my site. Second, these links pointing to my site are helpful for SEO.

Currently, I’m implementing this weekly calendar myself, but clearly much of it can be done by an assistant or outsourced.

You may very well design a different set of marketing strategies for your business than I have for mine. In particular, mine are all online strategies and you may have offline marketing strategies as well. The point is to create a system that encourages you to be consistent over time in implementing your strategies or they just won’t work well.

Would developing a system like this work for your business? Tell me what you think.

When business slows down, it’s a great time to increase your marketing. Why? Two reasons.

First, you’re looking to get more business and one of the most effective ways to achieve this is through marketing.

Second, since so many other businesses are slowing down their marketing, any that you do for your business will stand out that much more and be even more effective than usual.

If your cash flow is lower than usual now, here are some inexpensive ways to market your business:

• Create and send an ezine regularly to your subscribers. If you don’t have an opt-in form on your website, get one, even if you need to pay a web professional to help you. Then send your subscribers valuable content on a regular basis to build a relationship with them. Nothing will help you economy-proof your business better than a loyal group of subscribers who will buy from you.

• Submit articles to article directories and ezine publishers. The easiest way to create these articles is to repurpose them from your ezine. I use my blog articles with a few modifications. You can submit articles manually – that certainly takes the least cash – but there are services and software to help you accomplish the submissions.

• Start attending more networking meetings. These groups are usually not expensive to join and can be very helpful. I’d focus on the ones that emphasize giving and receiving referrals rather than just generic meet-and-greet types of groups if your goal is to increase cash flow now.

• List your web site in the numerous web site directories. Start with http://www.dmoz.com which only accepts manual submissions. After that, you have the option of submitting your site manually or using a service. Once again, I suggest using a service. This is a one-time job for each site you have and should cost less than $150 for hundreds of submissions.

• Find blogs and forums to add comments. This is entirely free, but can be time consuming. You want to find blogs and forums who attract your target market, and then find posts within them where you have something useful to add to the conversation.

• Develop a presence on some of the social networking sites. I like Facebook and Twitter.  These types of sites can provide another way to build a following of people interested in you and what you have to offer.

• Maximize the effectiveness of your affiliate program. If you don’t have an affiliate program, set one up. If you already have one, create some additional resources – buttons, articles, email messages – to help your affiliates sell your products and send them a message telling them about the new tools. You can have a sales force out there advertising your products and you only need to pay them after they’ve help make sales.

• Similarly, think about joint venture partnerships. Reinvigorate any you already have, suggesting a new mailing to their lists. And look for additional partners with lists that would be willing to work with you.

• Seek out opportunities to speak before groups. These events could be trade show seminars, local business associations, or corporate luncheons – anywhere you can get in front of your target market. Speaking can be one of the best ways to get more business quickly.

Many inexpensive marketing activites are available for small businesses. Pick several that appeal to you and allow you to become visible to your potential customers and get busy!

If you have other low-cost marketing techniques you use, please leave a comment and share them with everyone.