The power of article marketing is well documented. Not only is it a great way to get quality one-way inbound links to your website, but it also gives the author a way of targeting specific keyword phrases by putting their author resource link on those keywords rather than the name of the website. And beyond all that, articles are actually read by real human beings and give authors an opportunity to demonstrate their expertise directly to their target audience. Even with this proven track record, article marketing can still be done with little or no money. Indeed, distribution services exist but even those are extremely inexpensive. No, article marketing doesn’t take money. I just takes time. Even for the best authors, writing a quality article takes time and the submission process does as well.
The trick is to create an outline for your articles before you sit down to write any of them. Think about all the little facets in your business. Think about all the tiny little topics you could address in a short article. Write all these topics down and strive to put 3 or 4 bullet points under each topic. These bullet points could identify 3 strategies or 3 steps or 3 reasons supporting the underlying topic.
Once you have an outline for multiple articles, each with 3 or 4 bullet points, you can sit down to start typing. Each article should have an opening paragraph introducing the topic, a second paragraph explaining the problem, a paragraph for each bullet point and then a paragraph pulling it all together. In all, your article should have 6 or 7 paragraphs. At 80 words each, that would leave you with an article of 480 to 560 words.
Articles don’t have to be long. In fact, articles that are too long don’t get read as much. Shoot for 400 to 600 words. That’s just enough to cover a topic and provide real value without boring the reader. Keep in mind the reader will eventually find the article on a directory full of thousands of other articles. Yours has to be short and valuable.
The objective is to provide just enough value to inspire confidence from the reader. Demonstrate your expertise so they’ll want to read more of your work. And in the latter paragraphs, allude to the fact that there is a lot more to learn and that your website can provide that additional information. Each of your articles provides a link to your website. Encourage readers to use it.
The foregoing description sounds pretty structured. Creative writers will undoubtedly cringe reading my approach. But the fact is that you’ll be writing articles every day or at least twice each week. We’re all busy. We have to find a way of getting the job done in the shortest possible time frame. Following a specific structure can help you stay on top of the task without monopolizing your schedule.
Article marketing offers too many benefits to ignore. Whether your goal is to build inbound links, target keyword phrases or demonstrate expertise, a well-written article can do the job better than any other strategy. So get a list of topics together, think of 3 or 4 points under each and follow a structure for getting your thoughts on paper.
Become a recognized expert. Optimize your website. Explode your business. Tactical Execution provides implementation strategies for immediate results. Claim your free website traffic hotsheet today!
