Traffic Strategy #1: Article Marketing
There are a few important ingredients to creating high performance Article Marketing campaigns that maximize the overall effectiveness of your marketing efforts, while ensuring that you receive the most exposure possible from each article that you submit into the online directories.
First, writing an article on just any topic isn’t going to yield the results you’re looking for, if you haven’t first conducted keyword research to identify what your target audience is actively looking for, and the exact keywords and phrases they are using to be able to locate content on your topic.
This is fundamentally one of most critical elements of a successful article marketing campaign.
The closer you are able to target your prospective customer base with well written articles that incorporate primary keywords, the more traffic and exposure you will be able to generate.
Think about the possibilities if you carefully evaluated a niche market, creating keyword swipe files of highly relevant terms and phrases and incorporated them into your content. Not only will this help you position yourself within the search engines, but your visitors and readers will be exceptionally targeted!
When writing your articles, keep them slimmed down to only 300-400 words in length. We want to keep them short and on track, remembering our objective is to entice them to read the entire article and then click on the links featured within our author’s resource box leading either to a landing page, squeeze page or direct to the merchant’s website after being tagged with our affiliate link. If you struggle to come up with topic ideas for your articles, one easy strategy is to use the 'number technique’, which incorporates a bullet list into your document.
Example: ' Ten Tips To Saving Money At The Pump', or 'Top Five Methods Of Minimizing Acne'.
When writing your ads, keep in mind that there are 3 main parts to every article. Let’s take a look at what these are, and how you can make sure yours are written in the best possible way.
Article Title
The first thing your reader will see is your article title, so it’s an exceptionally important part of your article and serves as a headline does on a salespage.
Your title needs to captivate them, get their attention and prompt them to read further. You want your article title to be irresistible so they can’t help but click on the link and read the entire page.
Article Description
When article directories submit your content into their database, typically your title shows and possibly your description, or the first paragraph within your article content.
This is one of a few reasons why that first paragraph is so important. It not only works to describe what your article is about, but just like the title or header, it also needs to work to motivate your reader to continue reading.
Article Body Content
The remainder of your article should carry the reader right to the end. Don’t think that if your title and initial paragraph is good that they will simply continue reading, you still need to bring them along with you by weaving your article content so that it directly addresses the topic of your article.10
Keep it interesting and on topic. Use short paragraphs rather than lengthy ones and limit your article body content to 400 characters in total.
With your article, you need to:
ü Use a clear and direct title that captures attention instantly.
ü Follow it up with the first paragraph clearly describing the topic of your article.
ü Continue with the body weaving a story, and doing its job by keeping the visitor reading through to the end.
ü The closing paragraph or statement satisfying the reader with an ending to the story if you choose that style and prompting them to read the resource box below.
ü The resource box then compels the reader to click on a link by offering free information in the form of a free report, ebook, video, tutorial, ecourse or something else, relevant to the topic of your article.
To solve the problem of how to write an article that doesn’t give away too much or not enough, there is a very simple system that works every single time.
It looks like this:
1) Topic Introduction
2) Examples Of Subject Matter
3) Solution / More Information On Subject Matter
With the topic introduction you are clearly explaining exactly what the article is about. If you were writing about how to quit smoking, you would explain the benefits of quitting, the available aids and so on.
Then, you would provide examples that directly relate to your topic, for example with smoking, you could provide examples of some of the remedies or aids that don’t work.
And finally, you would provide information on a possible solution, and show them exactly how to get started.
You also want to try to stay within a 400-word guideline. Articles that are too lengthy will only distract your reader.
Your author's resource box is the ONLY element of your article that allows for promotion, so it's vital that you create a compelling resource box that invokes a call to action and entices every reader to follow through by clicking on your links.
With sites like Ezine Articles, you are able to create multiple resource boxes, choosing one that compliments each article that you write. You can also create multiple authors’ accounts so that you can cover a large number of topics, all within one account.
Use your resource boxes wisely, and make sure that you offer your reader with an incentive to click through.
One way of doing this is by offering a free giveaway in your author's resource box that is relevant to the topic or market that your article is focused on.
If you are not sure what you can offer within your resource box, here are a few things I have used successfully for over a year now:
v Free Report
v Newsletter or Ezine subscription
v Free ebook
v Free sample of a paid product
v Free Trial Membership
When creating your author's resource box, make sure to use anchor text whenever possible. This will help you rank for specific keyword phrases within the search engines.
While not every article directory permits anchor text within author resource boxes, whenever possible include various keyword phrases pertaining to your market.
You also want to incorporate a strong call to action, directing your reader to click your link and explore your website.
You should also limit the number of links contained within your resource box to only one, so that your reader is given a clear message, to click on your link and visit your site, rather than being confused with multiple options.
Your overall article should always be direct, relevant and tie in with the website or product that is featured within your author's resource box. If you plan to promote multiple websites, always create a new authors’ resource box for each article campaign!
Top Article Sites:
http://www.ArticlesBase.com
http://www.EzineArticles.com
http://www.GoArticles.com
http://www.SearchWarp.com