Free Powerful Tools for Promoting Your Freelance Writing Career!

Associated Content is a great outlet for virgin, gifted and professional talent. I have come to really appreciate the opportunity AC has made available. But, I only wish there was a Push-To-Promote, autopilot button that would make this whole business of making promoted content a; pop-in-the-microwave-done-in-5-minutes, snap. Interestingly enough, I had an eureka moment while working with two different webapps for simplified website storage and retrieval. (Note: these two web-based applications also work for any content on any platform).

Often, when working with website tools, software, applications etc., and I happen upon a unique way for altogether-different programs to work together synergistically, I get an incredible rush! An example of this phenomenon can be found in a previous article I wrote called: "Writers Can Now Create a Dynamic Desktop With Endless Writing Resources and Links for Free!" In it, I explored the benefits for writers (and others) in using two web-based applications, or webapps called 'Stumble Upon', and 'Symbaloo', together to explore the best websites on the Internet (based on users preferences), and store them in a uniquely fun way; on a Symbaloo desktop. Once I finished writing this article, I had another eureka moment when the question "Why not use this concept for promoting my articles?' Thus, the kernel of a new idea was born, which we can explore below.

But first, a quick refresher: Stumble upon, is a web based program where, once you install the SU tool bar, you can Stumble Upon, or explore other websites that are submitted by other Stumble Upon users. These are the coolest of the cool, and I am personally very impressed and constantly amazed at the breadth and quality of the SU users submissions. Symbaloo is also a webapp where you can save your unique website discoveries on individual 'desktops;' each holding up to 52 hot-button icons which are your website gems. Finally, the 'trigger' of this powerful weapon we are building, is an add-on button you can install on either your Mozilla Firefox, or Internet Explorer browser called the 'Add to Symbaloo' add-on. To find this, look for 'Tools' along top of your browser window, then look for 'Manage Add-ons' and in the 'Search' box, type in 'Symbaloo' and the add-on should come up. This add-on will allow you to save a website easily to your Symbaloo desktop, by clicking the 'Add to Symbaloo' button which will show up on your browser window (usually after a window restart).

Find out the details of how to install these 3 all important pieces to the puzzle, as you will need the completed puzzle before continuing this article: "Writers Can Now Create a Dynamic Desktop With Endless Writing Resources and Links for Free!"

Once the puzzle is established on your PC, or Apple, go to your Associated Content 'Account' and then 'My Content' and begin opening your articles. If you have a ton, as many of you do, just open up 10 or so at a time, so you can easily keep track of where you left off. Select an article, and click on the Symbaloo 'Add to Symbaloo' button (located upper right in Firefox), give it a name if one doesn't already come up, and hit 'Save'. Don't worry about the desktop arrangement, as you can drag-and-drop icons after your desktop(s) is/are created.

Now, once your first Symbaloo desktop is completed; goto 'Your Settings' (you have to have the Symbaloo desktop foremost in your browser window), click on 'My Desktops', choose the desktop you just created from the drop-down list (rename your desktop if you desire) then click the 'Share' tab up top, and and select the 'Share it' Icon. This will create a unique URL (website address) that you can post to your blog, website, other Associated Content articles or email to your friends, family and extended network. You can either 'Share' it from Symbaloo (found below the 'Share It' icon) or 'Copy' the URL and 'Paste' it to an email etc.

Finally, once 'Shared', click on the 'Publish' tab to the right of the 'Share' tab. A note here: you can only update your desktop, not delete it. Check the category that best describes your desktop, IE. 'Media'; input the 'Tags', and 'Description', read the 'General Conditions' checking the agreement box, and lastly, click 'Publish' button at the very bottom of the page. "Wallah" you are now published and available to anyone around the world who wants to make your desktop their own. This benefits you when the new desktop-owner(s) clicks on an article icon within the desktop, a new window/tab opens up at your articles website, thus chalking-up another page-view.

As I did use 'Great Ideas...' in the plural, I have one other self-promotion idea that has helped generate hundreds of extra page-views for one of my earliest Associated Content articles. Simply navigate to Answers.Yahoo.com, sign in using your yahoo mail ID, or sign up for free. In the search block, type in keywords that pertain to your article, and read the subject line to see if it lines up with your article. If you choose to post to a question, be sure to really answer the question. This will serve a duel purpose of doing a good deed for someone in need, and setting up the answer for an extra paragraph that says something like this: "By the way, read my published article to learn how you too can make money writing articles: ('Copy' 'Paste' your article URL here)". Be sure to answer the article with a genuine heartfelt answer to; 1) keep from getting a 'Thumbs Down' thus shooting yourself in the proverbial foot; 2) get a 'Thumbs Up' from the one who asked the question (or viewers can also vote) and have your answer chosen as 'Best Answer'. This will set in stone your answer at the top, right { margin-bottom: 0.08in }

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the question, so that everyone searching for that particular answer, around the world, will see your answer along with your article promo and link. Pretty neat huh? And it doesn't take that much time to answer all the queried questions for your particular keywords.

I hope this article will help promote your articles in a unique way and elevate Associated Content to heights unknown. Cheers!