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The Ultimate Guide to Succesful Article Marketing
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The Ultimate Guide to
SUCCESFUL
Article Marketing
Discover the best-kept secrets!
By Thomas smith – Editor
Find Me on Google+
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Can You Really Make Money With Article Marketing?
Internet marketing is information marketing. You make money online by
offering valuable content that’s just what people are looking for. One great
strategy for doing this is article marketing.
Article marketing involves writing articles on your topic that help the reader
and then submitting the articles to directories or other sites that would want
to publish it. This free submission gets your articles seen and gives you a
backlink to your site in the author bio at the same time. But is it really
possible that something this easy can generate profits for you?
Turning Your Articles Into Cash
Submitting articles to directories doesn’t boost your bank account, but it
gets you exposure. Your articles help you in several different ways. First,
you get a backlink to your site, which can help your search engine rankings.
Second, you get visitors. People read your articles and, if they find the
information helpful, they’ll click through to see what else you have to offer.
Your articles also help to build your authority in your field. When selling
online, trust and credibility are everything. If you’re an author who has
published over a hundred high-quality articles on your topic, people will see
you as an expert.
You can monetize the traffic from your articles once it hits your site. The
best way to do this is to presell your product or service through your article.
Provide information that’s not only relevant to your topic, but gets people
interested in buying as well.
Google Updates and Other Troubles
Some Internet marketers have turned away from article marketing because
directories no longer get the page rankings they used to. This is due to
Google’s frequent algorithm changes, some of which have targeted ‘content
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farms’ that crank out hundreds of articles. Many article directories were
included in this category
The decrease in directory authority hurt many article marketers, but far
from everyone. The people who were hurt most were those who skimped on
quality or who relied solely on directories as their main source of traffic and
publishing option. What you can learn from this is that quality matters and
it’s always good to diversify. Article marketing can make you money, but it
shouldn’t be your only traffic strategy.
How to Get Started
Article marketing takes time and commitment. To make it work, you need
to submit new articles consistently. The best way to get started is to write
short articles in your niche that will help your target market. Make them
relevant to the product or service that you’re selling.
Either schedule some daily writing time, or spend a week writing a batch of
content and then submit regularly. Consistently submitting fresh content
keeps your articles at the top of search engine results for your keywords. It
also gives publishers of your content something new to expect, making you
a reliable source for material to publish.
Choose just a few top article directories to submit to at first. Look for
directories that are high-traffic, have relevant articles in your niche, and
that let you monitor your statistics. This is particularly important because
you’ll want to see how your articles are doing. When one article is a big hit,
you can use it as a formula for future articles.
Article marketing can make you money, but it’s not the only traffic strategy
you should use. It’s just one weapon in your arsenal. While your articles can
drive traffic that converts, make sure that you are using other marketing
strategies to draw traffic to you site as well.
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How to Write Article Titles That Grab Attention
In article marketing, the title is everything. When people search for articles,
they get a list of titles. Yours should jump out at them and address their
needs. Then, they'll click to see what you have to say. It’s as simple as that,
but not necessarily that easy. Here's how you do it.
Resonate With the Reader
People get online and search for information because they need something.
They've got a question they need answered or a problem they need solved.
Your article's title should tell them that you've got what they're looking for.
In order to do this, the title should resonate with the reader. How do you do
this? It's easy – stop being a writer for a minute and imagine that you're
the reader. For example, you're tired of weight loss programs that don't
produce results. What title would get you excited? Something like – ' Weight
Loss Programs That Actually Work.' This title has emotional appeal.
Use Action Words
Some words simply pack more punch than others. 'Action words' are words
that are more assertive than other words and they catch the reader's eye.
These are words such as 'drive,' 'generate,' 'boost,' 'discover' and 'reveal.'
When you're toying with your article title, try writing a few different
versions using synonyms. Read each version and you'll feel which words are
the action words. Keep a list of the words you feel work best and refer to it
in the future when you're coming up with titles.
Appeal to the Reader's Curiosity
One of the best ways to write compelling titles is to appeal to the reader's
curiosity. An article title should make the reader say, 'What is this?' and
click it. Words such as 'secrets' and 'hidden' are great for doing this.
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Another way to pique your reader's curiosity is to turn your title into a
question. They'll find themselves inwardly asking the same thing, and
checking out your article to get the answer.
Be Different
The best article titles grab attention because they're simply different from
all the other titles out there. Choose wording for your titles that stand out
from the rest. If you're submitting to a directory, scan the articles in your
niche first. Then, create a title that's unlike anything you see there already.
Make your title unique, but be careful to keep it relevant. If your readers
can't tell what the article is about from the title, they won't check it out.
Also, be sure to keep it short and sweet. The title should be easy to scan so
that the reader can take it all in with just one glance.
A great way to find out which titles work and which don't is to monitor your
articles' progress. Find out which articles get read the most and look at the
wording of the titles. This will give you an idea of how to write your titles for
future articles.
4 Keys for Using Article Marketing to Drive Traffic
Article marketing is an excellent way to drive traffic to your site. You offer
the reader helpful information, and they click on your link to get more. It
also gives you an opportunity to pre-sell your goods or services. Here are
four easy, but highly effective tips to help your campaign succeed.
Feed the Starving Crowd
Your article content should target your audience perfectly. The way to do
this is to identify what they want and need, and then give it to them. People
get online to search for solutions to their problems and answers to their
questions. If your articles are helpful to them and offer them value, they'll
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want to know more.
For example, let's say that you're writing about meditation. While an article
on the history of meditation would be interesting, it doesn't really address a
specific need. If you write about how to get started meditating or what tools
will help you meditate, this will work much better. You've solved a problem
for them.
Don't Give It All Away
The highest-converting articles don't actually solve problems or answer
questions. You have to leave them wanting more. If they're completely
satisfied with what they read in your free article, they won't be interested in
buying. Your articles offer the reader a taste of what you have to offer.
If you're writing an article about roofing repair, for example, you don't want
to explain step-by-step everything they need to know about how to fix
damaged tiles. Instead, give them enough information to get them started,
and at the bottom of your article tell them to click the link for more.
Keyword Optimize But Don't Stuff
Make sure you're using the keywords you're targeting so that the article will
come up in search engine results. You should include the keyword in the
title and first paragraph at least, and then sprinkle it naturally throughout.
The key is to 'sprinkle' and not cram it full of one keyword. Search engines
don't like that and you'll end up with an article that's nearly impossible to
read. Instead, use related keywords and synonyms.
Call Your Readers to Action
The final ingredient of any good article marketing campaign is a strong
resource box. This is the author bio at the end of all of your articles with a
link to your site. It should not only introduce who you are, but more
importantly, tell the reader what they need to do right now in order to get
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even more value.
If you're not seeing the traffic you'd like to see, a few simple changes can
make a tremendous difference. Try using a couple of different resource
boxes and see which one gets more click-throughs. Drop article directories
that are underperforming and find new ones. Article marketing success is all
about monitoring your stats and making the necessary changes.
Duplicate Content – Why You Should Worry About It
In its most official meaning, duplicate content is something that appears on
more than one page on the same website. However, when most people talk
about it, they are referring to any content that appears on the Web in more
than one place. This can be content that's posted on sites on several
different domains, or it could be on different pages within one website.
While duplicate content may be irrelevant for someone like a news
syndicator, it can cause problems for many internet marketers who are
trying to rank a specific page or site.
Why the Search Engines Don't Like Duplicate Content
Search engines have spiders that 'crawl' the Web, looking for relevant
content and indexing it. This is how websites appear in their results pages.
When spiders come across duplicate content on different sites, they don't
know what to do with it. As a result, they ignore it and it doesn't get
indexed.
If you have multiple pages with the same content on your site, the search
engines think you're trying to game them. There are a number of black hat
strategies that do this in order to achieve higher search engine rankings.
One of these methods is 'mirroring,' where identical or near-identical pages
are created within one website that target different keywords. This is
against Google's TOS and can get you banned.
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What If You Need Duplicate Content?
There are times when you need to put the same content on multiple pages
of your site. For example, maybe you're selling items online and you need
different URLs for the item descriptions. In this case, there's a way you can
legitimize your duplicate pages so that you don't get penalized. It's called
'canonicalization.'
With canonicalization, you choose a preferred (canonical) URL for Google to
recognize as the main one. You can then choose multiple 'canonical' links
where the same page can be found. This way, Google knows which site it
needs to index.
Duplicate Content on Other Sites
One of the biggest myths in Internet marketing is that you'll get penalized
for submitting the same article to multiple directories. There's absolutely no
rule against this. You can also take articles or blog posts from your website
and submit them to article directories without getting penalized.
However, it's important to understand how Google indexes duplicate
content on multiple websites. When it finds the same content across
domains, it indexes the original poster first. It sees this person as the
authority who created the content. What this means is that if you post an
article on a directory first, and then put it on your site, your site won't
necessarily benefit in the search engine results.
The duplicate content issue confuses lots of people, but it's very simple if
you look at it through the eyes of a search engine. They want to give people
the highest quality and most relevant results for their Web searches. No one
wants to find 10 sites with the same article when they do a search. Let
Google know if you're putting duplicate content on multiple pages, and if
you submit to multiple directories, make sure it gets indexed where you
want it to.
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Your Article Marketing FAQ
Article marketing is easy and effective if you do it right. Because there's a
great deal of misinformation about article marketing out there, here's a
simple FAQ to answer the most common questions.
1. How Many Articles Do You Need To Write?
There's no standard number of articles that works best, but the general rule
is that the more you write, the more backlinks and views you get. It's best
to write lots of articles if you are submitting primarily to directories. You'll
get a small amount of traffic from each article, so by writing 50 or more,
you increase that traffic stream. Don't expect to write one great article and
see lots of traffic unless you already have a great reputation and a network
of high traffic sites that like to publish your articles.
2. How Long Should Your Articles Be?
Your articles should be at least 500 words, but it's fine to make them
longer. 500 words is long enough to make your point and offer 3-4 tips or
steps. It's also short enough to leave the reader wanting more. Most article
directories have a minimum length, so make sure you know what that is
before you start submitting.
3. Where Should You Submit?
There are thousands of article directories and most of them are complete
garbage. Do some research and find the directories that get the most
traffic. You can do this by simply searching 'article directory' in Google.
You can also submit your articles to Web 2.0 sites like HubPages.com and
Squidoo.com. These sites generally get more traffic than standard article
directories and they have features that make them more interactive.
However, submitting to these sites takes more time and they often have
stricter editorial guidelines.
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4. How Do You Know If It's Working?
The key to article marketing success is monitoring your articles to see how
they're doing. You can do this by checking your site analytics and seeing
how much traffic is coming from each directory. Many directories also offer
stats on their site so that you can see which specific articles are getting the
most views and click-throughs.
5. What If You Can't Write?
If you're not a writer or you find that it takes too much time, you can
always hire a ghostwriter to write your article for you. Sites like Elance.com
and Freelancer.com are full of web content writers who charge reasonable
rates.
You can also use PLR articles. This is ready-made content with 'private label
rights,' which means that you're free to use it. Since other people may have
bought the same articles, it's always best to reword them or hire an article
writer to rewrite them. This is much cheaper than paying for original
articles.
6. How Do You Get The Most Out Of Article Marketing?
To make article marketing really work, you need to be consistent and write
great content. Keep submitting articles on a regular basis and provide your
readers with valuable information they can use. Always be on the lookout
for new sites to submit your articles to, and monitor your stats to make
sure these sites are getting you the traffic you need.