In my last post, I covered Blogging, noting the importance and how to get your blog attention. This time, I will discuss Article Marketing. The article-writing strategies discussed here can be used for more than just what you submit to article sites. You can take what you learn here and apply it to your blogging techniques or ad copy.
One of the key ways of attracting people without spending money is through writing articles. Article Marketing is a very powerful and effective marketing strategy if done well. Your articles also give you something else that may come up high in search engine rankings, increasing the chances of someone finding whatever it is that you are trying to promote.
First, let me cover some things to avoid doing with your articles. Some sites are stricter than others, but I think it's best to follow Ezine's guidelines as a general rule of practice. Ezine articles are clean and do not feel like spam or bad advertisements. You don't want your articles to come off that way, no matter where they are.
To get accepted to Ezine, your article has to provide valuable information. This is something you should strive to do at all times. I say this a lot, but nobody likes a salesman. Sound too much like one, and you'll have the metaphorical door slammed in your face. Ezine frowns upon articles that take on the tone of promoting something and will reject promotional articles. Instead of talking about how wonderful something is, try figuring out the problem your product solves. Discuss that problem, providing factual information on it. Then offer a link for them to learn more. This link can take them to a landing page that is designed to actually sell them on the product if you wish. Just don't try to sell them in the article. Ezine also doesn't like self-serving links. They only allow one and it can't be too early into the article. It's best to save that for near the end. You also should utilize your resource box for links instead of the article body. This will make your article more likely to be accepted.
I briefly touched on focusing on a problem for your article. This is the easiest way to write. Every product is designed to do something. Most likely, it is supposed to provide some sort of solution to a problem people may have. If the product is sun block, the problem it solves is sunburn (as well as possibly preventing cancer). If the product is anti-virus software, the problem it solves is computer infections. I think you get the idea, so just ask yourself what problem the product is designed to address. Gather up what is detrimental about this problem. Why would people not want this to happen to them? What makes this solution or prevention important? Throw this information into your article to educate readers of the importance of solving this problem. This will make them want a solution. That solution is what you will lead them to.
With articles, it is bad to directly link to a product's sales page. It is much better to link to a blog or Squidoo lens that will then lead them to the sales page. This will increase the quality of your article. Throwing in a sales link just reduces the integrity.
Another thing to be mindful of is that you can use emotional hooks to draw people in. A compelling article may sympathize with sufferers of a particular problem, but remind them of how bad the problem is. Draw on their negative feelings towards the problem and then be their savior, offering them relief. The more you can show yourself relating to the target audience, the more successful you will be. You may also take a more positive approach, highlighting how wonderful it is to be free of the problem and how grateful you are to the product that enabled it. There are many options and strategies. You just have to find what works best for you.
Finally, I want to suggest to you some article sites I use to submit articles: EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, ArticleAvenue.com, 3stepAds.com and Unique-Article-Database.com.
Next post, I will wrap up this series by discussing how to utilize social networks and other broadcasting methods to draw attention to all of your creations. You can create all the Squidoo lenses, blogs, and articles you want... but if nobody knows about them, it will do you no good.
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