Article writing used to be more popular. A lot of people did it, and it became a less effective way to improve your website's standing. So many Internet gurus downplay it today, and they are right in many ways.
However, marketing your business is really important. There are many ways to do this, and articles cover several of these.
What can articles do for you?
While it is true that articles, alone, will not solve all of your marketing problems, but I still recommend them as part of the campaign. There are many things they do for you, still.
- Build Your Credibility: Nothing helps people believe that you're an expert like seeing an article that you wrote. It is so easy for people to look up information about you. Why not control some of that yourself by providing some good, related information?
- Humanize You: Some articles you write will be factual; some will be entirely opinion-based. Either way, parts of your personality will show through your writing style. Consider how often we feel like we know a journalist whose column we read in the paper? They (probably) don't know us, but we often feel a connection to them from what they wrote for us to see.
- Brand Your Company (or Yourself): Talk about a free or cheap form of advertising. Write articles that help, inform, or entertain people, and people will look forward to reading what you write. Another words, they will be seeking out you. Isn't that what you really want?
- Build Industry Awareness: Some people need to be educated about the importance of what you have to offer before you have any chance of selling your product or service to them. Grab their attention with something that is important to them (safety, money, status, etc.) and show them the connection to what you do or represent.
- Persuade People: This is similar to building industry awareness, except that you are trying to compel people to take action. What better way to get people to do what you want by persuading them to want to do it?
- Develop Customer Base: People like to refer other people all of the time, but the person hearing the recommendation doesn't always know whether to fully believe the recommendation. Write a few articles, and you make it really easy for someone else to recommend you. They can just simply point you to a few of your articles. How much of an impression do you think that will make?
- Create Backlinks: There more ways there are for Internet searchers to find your website, the better. When you write an article, you can leave a backlink to any website. Why not your own? Plus, the more of these you have, the more search engines tend to value your website (and rank it higher on the search engines).
I realize that everyone is not a natural writer, but with a little practice, you'll be amazed how quickly you'll get the skill. In fact, if you're writing about a topic that you really enjoy, you'll find that you will actually look forward to writing articles.
This probably won't happen, at first, though.
So here is a short list of ideas for writing articles to help you get started:
- Helpful Tips
- 6 Ways to ...
- How to ...
- Did you know ...
- Sharing Opinions
- 5 Reasons Why ...
- Did you realize ...
- Creative Ways to Use Something
- 7 Uses for ...
- Transformation
- People laughed when I ...., but they were amazed when I ...
- I used to ...., but now I ...
How should an article look? What are the different parts of an article?
Despite what textbooks tell you, there is not any way that you MUST write an article. However, here are my suggestions:
- Title
- Keyword: This needs to include your main keyword
- Be Catchy: Ideally, you want them to WANT to read it.
- Topic Glance: Give the searcher some idea about the article topic.
- Summary
- Keyword: Definitely include your main keyword here. If possible, add one or two supporting keywords, too.
- Grab Attention: Give the reader enough to want to read your article but not so much that he or she knows what you are saying before they read it. This is called the "teaser."
- Summarize: Give a quick summary of what you will cover. People like familiarity; so help them become familiar.
- First Paragraph
- Keyword: Include your main keyword. Often, you can restate your summary, and then have a segue into the main body.
- Backlink: Include a backlink to the main page of your website or somewhere else within it (or another related article that you wrote).
- Summarize: Answer the basic 5 W's: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How
- Main Body
- Keyword: Use your keyword, again, but don't overuse it. If it feels unnatural to write it, it will probably feel unnatural to read it. Also, include other keywords and words that are related to those keywords, even if they are not the phrases you are targeting.
- Length: Generally, the overall article should be 400 - 700 words, but that is a guideline--not a hard rule. My suggestion is to give enough information to be valuable but not so much that people get bored. Some topics need more attention (and can be longer) than others.
- Last Paragraph
- Keyword: Use your keyword once here.
- Backlink: This is a good place to guide the reader wherever you want him or her to go. This could be your home page, or it could be another landing page.
- Call to Action: You wrote the article for some purpose. Maybe you want to sell them. Perhaps, you want them to call. You might just want to the person to take action, independent of you. Just make sure that you remind the reader what you want by suggesting it.
- Contact Info: If you want the reader to contact you, leave them the information they need to do this.
- Resource Box: This is where you can write a quick blurb about you or your company. This is sort of like a classified ad style advertisement. You can have a generic one, but I suggest that you tailor it to the type of reader you expect to look at your article.
- Image
- Filename: If possible, have your image filename include your keyword.
- Clarity: Make sure that the picture is clear. Otherwise, you can lose almost as much credibility as you stand to gain from leaving a picture.
Where can we submit them so other people can see our article?
I just finished suggesting that you submit your articles, but where do you go to submit them?
There are many places online. You can type article submission into a search engine and find several.
However, two (2) places that I like are
EZine Articles: www.EZineArticles.com
Articles Base: www.ArticlesBase.com
Now that you know why it's important to write articles, it's time to begin brainstorming your topics, write, and submit your articles.
Happy writing!
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