Using articles is a pretty good way to drive traffic to your squeeze pages, blogs, etc… It’s not a “power move” per se, but articles can be seen for years after you write them. Also, by writing good articles and submitting them to article directories, you can establish yourself as an expert in your niche and send qualified traffic directly to your sites.
Writing articles doesn’t have to be hard. It’s more a matter of just sitting down and making yourself do it. You don’t need to plan them out or give near as much information as you do in a report. When you write an article you want to keep it short and to the point, usually between 300 and 500 words is best. You only want to write about one topic or bullet point in each article.
The quickest and easiest way to get an article written is to simply pick one thing you want to discuss and then just write about it for 5 minutes or so. Then go back through, edit it, and submit it. I’ve submitted 10 or more articles in one day very easily using this method. Writing an article shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes at the most after you practice a bit. It can easily be done every day with a little practice and self discipline.
Here is a simple strategy of mine that I use quite often to write my articles when trying to get more targeted leads to my squeeze. The first thing I want to mention, is to NOT make your article a sales pitch. Nothing tells a reader “I want your hard earned money” more than an overly promotional article. Not to mention, most of the top article submission websites will not even accept an article that is overly (and obviously) promotional.
Articles must be written with the reader in mind, and must provide real value. Research your target niche thoroughly, and give them what they want! The best thing about article marketing is that in most cases, it’s 100% free (other than the time aspect or if you plan to outsource).
Okay, now lets get into how to best structure your articles. The first thing I do, is I try to figure
out what problems people may be having in your niche. This can lead to many article topics for you to write. You want to really imagine the emotional pull it can have on the consumer. People make decisions based on emotion!
This is where I start the article process. Write two to three short paragraphs explaining the problem they may have. Really try to get your point across about how painful this problem may be etc… Just don’t go overboard here, otherwise we get back into the “selling BS” type of article which we don’t want. Make sure you help the reader to realize how big of a problem their problem is.
This is where it gets tricky. You will now need to gently explain how you have a great way to solve their problem, and why they should seriously consider listening to you. It’s always best to stress the
benefits rather than just the features. Remember, you want to go after the emotional triggers of your target customers. You go on to emphasize why this REALLY is a painful problem that your reader REALLY wants to solve. Point out some of the consequences of not solving this problem. Finally, you reveal how you have the the perfect solution to their problem in the form of more information.
If you really take your time and write a good article that is informative, and not just overloaded with keywords, chances are, after you submit them to article directories such as (ezinearticles.com, buzzle.com, and goarticles.com) they will be picked up by ezine publishers, and posted all over the internet.
This is great for getting a ton of backlinks, as well as traffic to your website / product offer. You could write 30 articles and get zero traffic, but if you write just ONE quality article, you could get a massive flood of visitors for years and years.
That is why I really like this simple method. It works, and many times ezine publishers will publish them, giving your articles a bit of a more viral aspect. That’s why you should always focus on the quality of your articles. Even if it takes you 3 times as long to write them, the rewards will far outweigh anything else. There are many ways to go about writing articles, and some work great, and some are not so great. This method I outlined here works very well, and I would hope you give it a try and see for yourself. It really is that simple. I have had dozens of my articles picked up by dozens of ezines which in return, has brought in a lot of free traffic. This is a very effective technique. If you write articles in this format and distribute them to the top article sites, before you know it you have thousands of links pointing to you and your product from all over the internet.
BUT WAIT!!!
What about the resource box at the bottom? This part is the most important! They can read articles all day long, but if there is no call to action or incentive for them to click on your link, then your article isn’t doing its job very well. Sure you may still get backlinks, but you will be missing out on possible subscribers, which is why you are doing this in the first place!
What resource boxes work the best? Well this is a subject of debate and may take some testing on your part just like anything else. However, I find that resource boxes that talk about the author (you) as an expert in their niche (which you are) and offer more free information by visiting their website always work well. They also must have a call to action. Tell your reader what to do next!
Here’s an example: John Smith is a freelance content writer who
specializes in niche blogging. Visit his personal blog where he reveals his
closely guarded money generating blogging strategies. Go there now. It’s FREE! http://www.niche-blogging-master.com .
Make sure to use a keyword that you are targeting in the resource box
with a link pointing to your site as well. (the anchor text). In this case, it
was “blogging strategies”
So your HTML code would look like this:
John Smith is a freelance content writer who
specializes in niche blogging. Visit his personal blog where he reveals his closely guarded
money generating <a href=”http://www.niche-blogging-grand-master.com”>blogging strategies</a>.
Go there now. It’s FREE http://www.niche-blogging-grand-master.com .
Depending on the niche you are targeting, different resource boxes will have different results, so it’s always best to test some different ones. You can track your click through ratio to see what works best. Ezinearticles.com is the main site I use for this purpose. It’s fairly simple to track all your stats there.
The last thing I want to touch up on articles is the title. I have noticed a lot of people keyword stuffing their article titles with a double keyword.
Example: Fruit Carving: The Secrets to Fruit Carving Revealed at Last!
I used to do this myself, and yes it gets a quick spurt in the search engines in the first week or two, but it always seems to die off. Instead of doing this, I recommend only using your keyword one time, and focusing more on the actual readers instead of the search engines! Not only do the search engines still notice it, the readers will notice it more.
Here’s an example of a better article title:
Fruit Carving that Anyone can Learn in 15 Minutes or Less!
If someone was wanting to learn how to carve fruit, this would be a much more appealing article, and chances are they will want to learn more. Just always remember, as far as articles are concerned, its always QUALITY over QUANTITY!
I have written many articles in several different niches, but that doesn’t neccesarily mean that I enjoy doing it all the time. After all, it does take a bit of effort. For this reason, I always have atleast two different article writers that I hire out to write articles for me. If you are patient, you should be able to find a quality article writer for only $5 per article.
In most cases you should pay $10 to $20 per article if you want quality. I had to test out several article writers before I found anyone that can write very well and for only $5 each. The best advice I can give, is to post some small article jobs on scriptlance.com (maybe 2 or 3 articles) and see how they do. Always tell them that you will check the articles for duplicate content with copyscape (http://www.copyscape.com). Once you find a couple of quality article writers, you can start to outsource more and more, driving lots of traffic to your squeeze pages for cheap.
Here are just a few Article Directories that you can post your articles to:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.buzzle.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articlestreet.com
There are many different places out there where you can submit your articles. Just do a few simple searches in Google and you will find hundreds!
Another option is to use a website that do multiple submissions for you! Here are a couple that you can use:
http://www.isnare.com
http://www.submityourarticle.com/
-Ben
{ 10 trackbacks }