Article Marketing for Beginners - in Simple, Easy Steps for Huge Traffic
I tried article marketing for fun on one of mine own sites and then started writing articles for friends. After my first year, I had done over million reads and around 200,000 clicks to my sites.
I am a firm believer in article writing as a great way to get qualified traffic and here are the salient points you need to consider to enjoy article writing success.
Writing your Article
The article has 3 key elements:
The Title
Make this key word rich at the start and make it long enough for you to entice the reader and tell them how it will benefit them.
The Content
Make sure your article is not to short - make 500 words or more if possible but you don't want to have one that's to long either, so 750 words should be the maximum length.
Write a tight focussed and just tell them what they will learn by reading it and that's it.
The body of the article should not consist of long paragraphs, try and keep them to about 4 sentences and break the article up with eye catching sub heads and bullet points.
The key point is to make the article easy to read, get them to your resouce box and to your site.
Make sure it's a natural article, search engines work on LSI principles now so forget trying work out keywords and their effect.
You want to show you're an expert in your industry and you want them on your site, so start telling them what else they need to know in the end paragraph, that's related to the content of your article. Show them you have a lot more knowledge or information to share.
You're Resource Box
You need a headline and it should be a high perceived value item.
A free PDF, free newsletter or limited offer are always good. The offer will of course depend on your service or product - but something with high perceived value is what's required.
When you have written one article change the headline and edit the text.
It's the same message but you're creating 2 x versions.
I can write an article in about 45 minutes and edit in 15 and if you follow a set format you can do the same.
2. Submitting Your Article
One version you want to take a search term, so it needs to go to high page rank article site and you need to get some links to it to increase its chances of rating highly, so Bookmark it and Blogg it.
The second article is to get traffic from directories.
You can submit it to as many as you wish. While many article writers use software and put it in as many directories as possible, I used about 30 only and do it by hand.
I have a different directory list depending on subject and these 30 will do 70% of a full 600 list on article submission software.
The article directories on these lists have been tested by me and are a mixture of 15 (the biggest) and then some niche directories, or ones that get the most hits on my subject. For example, I have one directory outside of the Alexa top 100 that gets as many hits as one in top 5,000!
Spend some time testing article directories to get a targeted and responsive list.
Many article directories do not like automatic submission software and look to ban people who lose them so dont bother with them.
If you know your subject article writing is a great way to get targeted traffic and get it quickly.
Don't try and be to clever. Your out to pre qualify and that means an article that is natural, shows off your knowledge and is easy to read. Combine that with a good offer and you will soon be getting a constant flow of high quality leads which you can turn into profits.
Article writing for beginners is made complicated by many people but it's really common sense and I managed a million hits in my first year and if I can do it you can to.