"Article Marketing Blog: Creative Article Marketing" - 5 new articles
Reader Question: Do I Need A Website To Do Article Marketing?Reader Question:
I don’t have a website, but I do have an article that I would like to write and get published on other websites. I’m sort of new at this, and I want to get better. Could you tell me if what I want to do is possible? Answer: Generally, people who do article marketing do so to drive traffic to a website. So, it would be a little unconventional to do it if you didn’t have any sort of website you were hoping to lure readers to, but it’s not unheard of. Often times when we’re thinking about article marketing, we only think about driving traffic to a website, but there are other perks as well. One of the main reasons why people do article marketing (besides trying to drive traffic to a website) is establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. If you had an article you wanted to be viewed on other websites, you could submit it as a free reprint article and then it would be likely that publishers would pick it up. Article marketing is not just about Google–there are benefits to being regarded as an expert in your niche that have nothing to do with search engine ranking. For example, as a result of my own article marketing efforts, I now have articles (on article marketing) published on a regular basis in at least one offline magazine circulated to hundreds of paying subscribers. This has the obvious effect of immediately identifying me in those subscribers’ minds as an expert in my niche. Several customers have come to me via this route (I know because they told me), and this reputation as an expert has also opened up various joint venture opportunities with additional advantages for my business. The main thing I would ask you is this: “What do you hope to accomplish by getting your article published on different websites?” If your goal is to establish yourself as an expert, then article marketing is a good choice. One caveat though: You will still need to submit articles consistently–one or two articles is not going to cut it. If you want to be regarded as an expert in your niche, you still need to submit articles to the same extent as someone who has the goal of driving traffic to a website. I would encourage you though–if you do have business, it would be a great idea to make a website. That would ensure that you were getting the maximum benefit from article marketing. Publisher Dashboard Live ..
This allows publishers to sign up to our network, add any number of ‘Publishing Nodes’ (eg. email addresses, article directories), set categories, decide how many articles they want to receive per day, and so on. They can even Pause and later Resume article submissions.
It’s all designed to further grow our distribution network by helping to both attract and retain publishers to our network. It provides full facilities for our publishers so that they can effectively manage what they receive from us … full details here If you haven’t already, why not sign up as a publisher yourself and get regular quality content you can publish as and when you wish? Plus it’s all for free – go here now: https://secure.submityourarticle.com/publishers More exciting facilities will be added in the coming weeks … let me know what you think. (Oh, if you’re already on our email publisher list, just enter your email on the Recover Password page, and you’ll get log in details sent to you). 10 Tips For Better Web Writing
Some things you need to keep in mind as you’re writing your articles are:
With this in mind, here are 10 ways to make your articles web-friendly:
1) Your title should be succinct and tell exactly what your article is about. Avoid metaphors and clever puns. Remember, a reader is scanning your article title to see if they want to read your article. The easier you make it for a reader to determine the topic of your article, the better. Can the reader get a good idea what your article is about by reading the first 3 words? That is something to shoot for. Also remember that some article directories have length limits on titles–another great reason to keep the title from being overly long. 2) Present your main point right out of the starting gate. When writing your introductory paragraph, get straight to the point. This is a work in progress for many of us who like to wax poetic, but it’s just a matter of disciplining yourself not to ramble, especially at the beginning of your article. 3) Use a word count goal. If you don’t use a word count goal, the article can very easily get away from you. You might choose to aim for a word count somewhere between 400-800 words. This will help you write with more focus and discipline. You are not just writing indefinitely–you are placing limits on the amount of information you can include and that will help you get straight to the point. 4) Use short paragraphs. As much as possible, keep paragraphs short and sweet. More line breaks give the reader’s eyes a chance to rest, and it helps a person read your article more easily. 5) Use sub-headings. The more you can guide a reader through your article, the better. Sub-headings are a great way to delineate sections and topics in your article so that the reader can skim and easily follow the information in your article. Sub-headings should stand apart from the other sentences in your article. Here’s how: USE CAPITAL LETTERS IN YOUR SUB-HEADING OR… Use Capital Letters Just For the First Letter Of Each Word OR… *Put A Star (Asterisk) Before Your Sub-Heading OR… => Put an arrow in front of your sub-heading. (You can create an arrow by pressing the “equals” key (=) and then the “greater than” key (>) Also, be sure that your sub-heading has a blank line above and below it–that makes it easier to see. 6) Include list elements. Lists are hugely popular on the internet, probably because they are easy to skim. An article can contain list elements in the form of steps in a how-to article, or an actual “Top Tips” or “Top Mistakes” type of article. 7) Choose your links carefully. Multiple links in an article can be distracting, so keep the links to a minimum. Remember, the main link you want the reader to click is the link in your resource box, rather than links in the article. 8 ) Put links after the 3rd paragraph. Avoid putting links at the beginning of your article–it is distracting. If you must include a link save it for after the 3rd paragraph, when readers have had a chance to get into your article. Also something to consider: Some article directories will decline articles that have links in the first 3 paragraphs. 9) Your article is not a term paper. Readers are not expecting you to provide every last detail about your topic in every article. When you’re writing articles, think “bite sized morsels” rather than “doctoral thesis”. Choose a subject that is manageable enough to cover in a medium sized article (800 words or less) and include as much information as you can. Provide a good chunk of valuable and unique information in your article, and let the reader click through to your website if they have additional questions. Remember, your article is the appetizer, and your website is the main course. 10) Edit, edit, edit! Review your article and remove/edit any sentences that are redundant, rambling, or awkward. This is where your word count goal is extra helpful–it’s much easier to decide to give a sentence the ax if you’re forcing yourself to stay within a certain word count. Every word must earn a place in your article. Conclusion In a way, writing for the web requires much more discipline than offline writing. The idea is to quickly catch the reader’s attention, make your article as easy to read as possible, provide valuable information in your article, and also leave them wanting more. Article Writing Trick: Write An Article Skeleton
In fact, writing from scratch is something that I try to avoid. Here’s what I do: Sometimes when I get an idea for an article, I write down a makeshift title, jot some notes on the topic, and then stash it away for a rainy day when I need to write an article. This is like an article skeleton–just the bare bones of an idea to be developed later. This takes an immense amount of pressure off of the writing process–when my writing day arrives, if I’m stumped for something to write about, I look at my folder of “skeletons” hoping to find something that will inspire me. And then–JOY! I open a file and find that the article main points are already in there, a head start!
Do you stash writing ideas like this? Right now I have about 50 article skeletons– Sometimes I will just type in the title and leave the body blank if I don’t really have an idea of how to start. Then I’ll save it and just use the title to jumpstart a new article. But the real treasure is opening up a draft to find that the article is already started, with either points listed or an intro paragraph. It’s daunting to start out looking at a white page–it saves so much mental energy to start off with the article skeleton already in place. Today I got on a roll and created 4 article skeletons in about 20 minutes–very satisfying! It doesn’t take much time when your mind has got that creative momentum going, and there’s no pressure to come up with anything resembling a finished article. What do you think– Will you try this “article skeleton” technique? Photo by perpetualplum 17 Common Resource Box Mistakes
In fact, in Article Marketing, the resource box is the reason for the article! The article is where you give, providing helpful information for your readers, and then the resource box is where you “take”–you get to tell a little about yourself , give a link to your website, and also try to convince people to visit your site. The article is not an end in itself–in addition to being a way of sharing educational information with your readers, your article is a vehicle for building links and funneling visitors into your website. So, don’t forget to spend time on your resource box and be sure that you aren’t making any of the most common mistakes:
Mistake #1 : A resource box that only contains a link and nothing else. Here is the info you should include in your resource box:
Mistake #2 : Too long URL in a text resource box (over 60 Characters). When your URL is over 60 characters, you have an increased chance of the link breaking in a text resource box. As a solution, you may choose to link to a top level domain (which should be shorter) for a text resource box, and reserve the longer URLs for an HTML resource box. Mistake #3 : Not formatting your URL properly in the text resource box–it has to have http:// at the beginning and .com at the end. So, a properly formatted URL would look like this: http://www.submityourarticle.com Mistake #4 : Not giving any author bio info. At its heart, the resource box is an author bio. Some publishers will outright decline an article that has a resource box with no author bio, and readers certainly appreciate a little bit of info about the author. It also gives you a chance to convince the reader that you are indeed an expert on this topic and your information can be trusted. Including author bio info helps establish your expertise. Mistake #5 : Not mentioning your author name. Do include your name! If you’re more of a staff writer for your company and don’t want to focus the attention on you, then at least include your business name. Mistake #6 : No reason to click through. It is not enough just to give a link to your website and expect the reader to take it from there–you need to encourage the reader to click through to your site by giving them a reason to click. Why should someone go to your website? What do you have to offer them there? A free report? More information on this topic? Be sure to offer some sort of reason to click the link in your resource box. Mistake #7 : No link! Article marketing is effective at driving traffic to a website, and an essential ingredient is the link in your resource box. The link is the doorway to your website. The link is what Google will see when it’s establishing the authority of your website and adjusting search engine rankings. The link is the reason why you’re submitting the article, so don’t forget to put it in your resource box. Mistake #8 : Too many links! Pick one or two strategic spots that you’d like to drive traffic to or build links to (such as your home page and the page where you offer a free report where people can sign up for your list), and leave it at that. No need to put a link to every site you own! Know that the more sites you link to, the more confusing it is for a reader to figure out which site to go to (most people will not click every link in your resource box if you have several). Mistake #9 : Trying to put italics or bold in your URL. That can mess up the link and cause it to break. Don’t try to get fancy–it’s not necessary to bold, underline or italicize the link. Mistake #10 : Providing too much contact info. I call this “business card syndrome”, where your resource box looks more like a business card than an author bio. No need to include phone number, email address, fax number, and your mailing address. Just put your website URL. If someone wants to contact you, they should be able to go to your website and find that info. Don’t take up valuable space in your resource box giving extra forms of contact. As a form of contact, a link to your website is enough. Mistake #11 Putting punctuation directly after your URL. Avoid adding punctuation immediately after the URL, such as a comma or a full stop (period), as this can create problems on certain web sites when they automatically convert the URL into an active link. Mistake #12 : Not testing out your links! Be sure to preview your article and test the links in your resource box. Just click them and be sure that they are going where you want them to go. We all have the ability to make typos, so you want to discover that before you submit your article. Mistake #13 : HTML resource box: just having hyperlinked keywords and nothing else. The HTML resource box should include the same level of information as a text resource box (all the info I listed in Mistake #1). Mistake #14 : HTML resource box: forgetting to hyperlink your written out URL. An HTML resource box pre-supposes that you are hyplinking anchor text–you are choosing which words to link to your site. If you include a written out URL (http://www.SubmitYOURArticle.com), you need to specify you want that hyperlinked too. If you do not, then a link will not be formed. Mistake #15 : HTML resource box: using too many words as anchor text. Limit your anchor text to 3 words (if you are targeting long tail keywords you may end up hyperlinking up to 5 words), but keep in mind that some publishers have limits on how many words you can use as anchor text, and if you go over 3 the article may be declined. Mistake #16 : HTML resource box: Hyperlinking your name or business name. With an HTML resource box, the idea is to hyperlink your keywords, rather than your name or business name. Mistake #17 : HTML resource box: Not hyperlinking any keywords at all, but just your URL. The benefit of the HTML resource box is in hyperlinking your keywords. If you just hyperlink your URL, you might as well skip the HTML resource box and just use a text resource box. How Did You Do?
I hope that this article catches some of you before you make these mistakes so you can avoid the “Ugh! No, I didn’t just do that!” feeling. Either way–live and learn Additional Resources How To Create A Resource Box: The Ultimate Guide 5 Ways To Be Sure That Your Resource Box Links Work Are You Making One Of These 7 HTML Resource Box Slip-Ups? Photo by swisscan More Recent Articles |
After months of behind-the-scenes development, including upgrades to our distribution system, I can proudly announce our brand new 
! We all make mistakes, especially when learning something new. So, if any of these have hit home, just resolve to make the correction next time. You have plenty more articles where you can create powerhouse resource boxes.