Article Marketing
Article marketing is my favorite website promotion method and, in my opinion, the single most effective way that I have found after 4 years of trial and error (well, mostly error!) to get traffic and backlinks to your website.
Having a good article marketing strategy will do several things for you:
1. It will establish you as an expert in your field (no, you don’t have to actually be an expert – you just have to play one on the internet!)
2. It will provide powerful links back to your site that will give it more “oomph” in the eyes of the Search Engines
3. If you article is interesting enough (and you have done your article marketing research properly), you will get traffic from people that click through your article to read more of what you have to say.
So, in my opinion, article marketing is where you get the biggest bang for the buck, but you don’t actually have to spend even a buck to do it!
Yep, even if you don’t know diddly about the topic of your website, you article marketing research and writing can be a breeze just by using the internet. Here’s a few article marketing tips that can help when doing research for your articles:
1. “Google” your topic and read a few of the interesting sites on your topic- jot down some notes in your own words.
2. Go to ezinearticles.com and search for articles on your topic – again take notes in your own words. DONT COPY THE ARTICLES!
3. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts and enter your search term, select comprehensive, select once a day and enter your email. Now you’ll get all the new information that Google finds on your topic every day !
Article Marketing Tips – Writing The Article
OK, now that you have your article marketing research done and you are armed with everything you need to know about your topic, you need to get busy and write the article.
For some people, writing comes easy, for others, not so much. But since having a good article marketing strategy is key to promoting your site, you need to get down to business.
I find that it’s easier to write the articles if I take them step by step.
Every article needs to have a title, a body and a resource box. Sounds, simple, right?
The Title
One of the most critical article marketing tips has to do with the title. You need to grab the readers attention so that they read the article. In many cases, the article title will be the only thing the see in the search engine listing or in a list on another website so you want to make sure it is compelling enough for them to give it a click.
How do you do that?
It’s actually rather simple, you list a benefit that the reader simply can’t resist. OK, well maybe that isn’t so simple if you’re not used to writing that way but once you do get used to it, it will be second nature.
A lot of people confuse features with benefits. What you can do to differentiate is to always keep in mind that a benefit are things that will solve the readers problem – it will change the readers life in some way. Features are more concrete – characteristics of the product or program.
For example, if you were writing an article to promote a weight loss program, your title might read something like:
“Bust Belly Fat – Exercises That Will Help You Look Good In That Summer Bikini”
Anyone with the problem of belly fat will surely like the idea of looking good in a bikini , so they will likely find this headline appealing.
The Body
An essential part of your article marketing strategy is that you use a soft presell technique in the article body. This is something that 90% of the people using article marketing do not do and if you can learn how to do it effectively you can have a huge advantage.
Not only that but you’ll sell more stuff because you will have “presold” your visitors and they will be ready to buy when they get to the merchants sales page!
You want to start off the first paragraph by drawing your visitor in with something he or she can relate to. Let them know that you empathize with their problem because you have been in a similar situation.
Then you want to move on to the next few paragraphs where you outline why other methods to solve the problem might not work and why yours (or the one you are promoting on your website) will. Be sure to highlight how solving the problem will make their lives better.
As part of your article marketing strategy, you will, of course be submitting to article directories such as Ezinearticles and they can be pretty particular about the content of the article. It must deliver on what the headline promises. Therefore you also need to add an informative paragraph or two that will satisfy that need.
The important thing about your article body is that you want to give them enough information to keep them interested but leave them wanting more …. which they will find when they click through to your website!
If your resource box will send them directly to a sales page, then you can presell the benefits of the product in the article, but if the link in your resource box is going to an article on your site that will then have a link to an affiliate product, you want to leave most of the benefits of the actual product for that second article (the one on your site).
So, in the article you will be submitting to the directories you would want to emphasize the benefits of solving the problem and then make them want to click to your site where you will tell them how they can solve the problem with the affiliate product.
(if you want to learn more about writing effective articles that presell, I highly recommend this ebook – http://www.cashbootstrapmethod.com/presell/ – it will elevate your article writing to a whole new (and hopefully more profitable) level).
The Resource Box
Another important part of your article marketing strategy is the resource box. This is where you link back to your website, so it is critical. The more people that click the link, the more money you make.
Many people make the mistake of touting their credentials and talking about how they are an expert in the resource box, but what you really want to do is tell the visitor how clicking your link will benefit them.
So you might say something like:
If you want to learn 5 techniques on busting belly fat in 60 days, visit www.yourwebsite.com
Or, you can bribe them with a give-away like this:
Visit www.yourwebsite.com for a free report on 12 foods that can help reduce belly fat.
It doesn’t have to be a long and drawn out paragraph – short and sweet can work just as good. Of course, the page you are directing them to must make good on the promise by revealing the “5 techniques” or free report or whatever you have promised them.
But…..
There’s one other important thing about the resource box that this article marketing tips lesson would not be complete without and that is the anchor text.
One of the reasons for writing articles is to get traffic to your website from the article itself, but the other reason is to help your website pages rank and you do that by linking back to your website with the keyword phrase you are trying to rank for.
So, in the example above – If you want to learn 5 techniques on busting belly fat in 60 days, visit www.yourwebsite.com – let’s say your keyword phrase on your website is “techniques on busting belly fat” then you want to use these as your anchor text. Most directories allow you to have 2 links in your resource box so you can link to this inner page as well as the home page.
Now, your resource box, might look something like this:
If you want to learn 5 < a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/techniquesonbusingbellyfat.htm”>techniques on busting belly fat</a> in 60 days, visit www.yourwebsite.com
Finally, for the end link you could use a hyperlink to your url
OR
You can use the keyword phrase that you are trying to rank your main page for in the anchor text
OR
You can simply use the words “Click here” as the anchor text. I know, you’re not trying to rank for the keyword phrase “click here” but it can be very effective to get people to click through to your site so you might try using it every once in a while.
Submitting Your Articles
OK, now you have your articles written, but what do you do with them?
You want to submit them to some article directories. The best by far is ezinearticles.com so start there. They will only accept unique articles so submit there first and once the article gets accepted, you can distribute that same article to other directories. If you are a new author to their system, it could take a week or longer to get your articles approved but once you have 10 articles approved in the system, it will only take a couple of days.
The second best article directory is buzzle.com. The also only accept unique submissions, so you will have to write a second article to submit to them!
Here are some other article directories you can try submitting to:
There are literally hundreds of directories, and you could spend all day just submitting your articles so if you want to go for a wide distribution, I recommend you use a service like isnare who will submit your articles to hundreds of directories and websites with the click of a button (or go with UAW for semi-unique articles – click here to learn more about that).
How Many Articles Do You Need To Write?
A lot! Seriously, you need to do quite a bit of article marketing to see some action, but the good part is that the articles stay online virtually forever and will drive traffic to your site for years. At first it might seem quite tedious, but the traffic from the articles will build and build – so don’t give up!
Of course, you can always outsource this task but you probably won’t be able to find a writer that can write a good “presell” article and not bust your budget.
