MarkTse.com Internet Marketing Blog

This article exposes ten easy but important article writing tips that can tremendously increase targeted traffic coming from your article submission.

————————————
Featured Article by Donna Gunter

I’ve been submitting articles to online article directories for almost a year now, and as a result, I’ve seen a tremendous increase in my website traffic. Increasingly, what I’m seeing is visitors coming to my site because of searches for keywords that also happen to be the same as topics of articles that I’ve written. Additionally, my articles have been published in several high profile ezines that have very large subscriber lists, which have driven even more traffic to my website.

How can you write article that increase traffic to your website? Here are 10 strategies I am successfully using:

1. Short but valuable content.
Based on all of my research of various article directories, articles should be between 450 -1000 words, with an optimal length of 700-800 words. Most of my articles are 1000-1200 words, so even though I’m a great violator of this rule, article marketing has still been a successful strategy for me.

2. Curb your submissions.
Many article submission services as well as article directories permit you to submit an unlimited number of articles on a weekly basis. Consequently, I’ve heard that some of these services have been blacklisted by the more reputable directories (not the service I’m using, however). In my opinion, article directories permitting unlimited article submissions are great wastelands of poorly written articles, unless they have some type of article approval process attached to the submission. The reputable article banks (those that have great credibility with ezine publishers for having content-rich articles) usually limit article submissions to no more than 2 per week.

3. Captivating title.
Creating a compelling title to an article is key in attracting a great readership. Most of my articles are “How to” articles, or they are some type of tips article that solves a problem. For example, “Top 10 Strategies to…”, “5 Secrets to Creating..”, “The 3 Key Ingredients to…”, or “7 Mistakes to Avoid”. The general formula that I use is a number and a problem that most of my target market has or a number and a solution to a problem that they have.

4. Include your keywords.
In order to drive traffic to your site, you’ll need to include the keywords by which you want to be found in the title of the article. To maximize the effectiveness of the article, you’ll want to use that same keyword 3-7 times in the content of the article.

5. Short paragraphs are best.
You junior high English teach might cringe, but when you’re writing online content, your paragraphs need to be no more than about 3 sentences each, and your sentences need to be rather simply constructed. Keep in mind that people are looking at light, not paper, when they’re reading online. That means that stress on the eyes is different in this medium than reading a hard copy of something. Because many readers tend to scan online content rather than thoroughly read it, divide your article content into numbered bullet points for easier reading and comprehension.

6. Valuable content.
I read an incredible amount of drivel in online articles. I really resent wasting my time when an article has a wonderful title that solves a problem that I have, but when I click on the full content, it fails to deliver any valuable information. It’s even more annoying when the article is simply an advertorial of sorts for a product or service. I always strive to deliver the best information that I have about a topic to my readers. Don’t be afraid of giving away what you know! It’s a great way to establish your expertise so that your target market will confidently buy from you when they’re ready.

7. Have a beginning, middle and an end.
Your article should have an introductory paragraph to tell your readers what you’re going to tell them in the article, the body of your article with your prime content, and then an ending that summarizes what you said in the article. If you write tips articles with numbered points like I do, it’s important to end with a summary paragraph rather than your last tip, as many directory editors will refuse to publish your article because it’s considered incomplete.

8. Limit your URLs.
Most article publishers will refuse to list your article if you have more than 3 URLs in the body of your article. Stricter publishers will refuse to publish any article containing affiliate links in the body, or links back to one of your websites in the body.

9. Compelling resource box.
The resource box is the “commercial” that appears at the end of the article to tell the reader what you do. Typically, this commercial is 1-2 sentences containing your catchy “tag line” and the URL of your website (preferably on a separate line to make it stand out better). A resource box that makes a reader take action and visit your site is one that contains a short description of a free offer you’re making to the reader, usually for a downloadable audio file, ebook, special report, or ecourse if they sign up for that product on your website.

10. Place your articles on your website.
Search engines love valuable and relevant content, so the more of this type of content that you have on your site, the higher your search engine rankings. I would estimate that at least 50% of my weekly traffic comes from searches on keywords I have placed in my article titles. I just recently reorganized my articles by topic and created an individual page for each topic, with each page containing the full listing of articles that I have that relate to that topic. I have the full listing of topics on the left-hand side of every page of my site. I’m observing an increasing amount of traffic to my site coming from search terms like, “Internet marketing articles” or “time management articles”, as I have both pages as article listing pages on my site.

Your target market needs your expertise! If you use the strategies I’ve outlined to write your articles, you’ll start to see the traffic to your website increase in short order.

————————————
Click Here to Discover the Secrets to Be a Web Traffic Expert, Coaxing Thousands, Even Millions of Highly Targeted Users to Your Website – For Free:

==> www.marktse.com/recommend/traffic-info.php

————————————
Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Business Coach Donna Gunter helps self-employed service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To sign up for more FREE tips like these and claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at www.GetMoreClientsOnline.com . Read about running an online biz at our blog, www.getmoreclientsonlineblog.com

This article explains why article marketing can attract targeted traffic to your website. It also exposes a simple secret that you can use to add targeted keyword into your article immediately.

————————————
Featured Article by Martin Lemieux

It’s the age of the internet, is your business actively promoting online? Using your knowledge online can bring your business great success. We all have ideas we can share about our own industry; failing to share those ideas is like failing to plan for the future.

Online business rewards those who work hard at what they do. Many smaller companies launch their website with the notion that search engines will find them right away, and that visitors will start pouring in.

The reality is; this is not true. Granted, search engines may find your website one day and list a couple of pages from your site but, this is definitely not even close to being enough effort on your part. These couple of pages listed online will never attract the right type of client on a frequent basis.

A Brand New Website Doesn’t Guarantee Sales!

Some of you might have an extensive advertising budget which you will probably spend it all through PPC (Pay Per Click), text ads, and other different venues. If I were you, I would hire a copywriter, or an SEO company to write articles for you!!! A writer would be able to share your knowledge online, while targeting a specific market! I can’t stress this enough how niche articles can target the right market you’re looking for.

For those of you who don’t have an advertising budget, you’ll want to become the writer for your company. Hands down, article marketing is the #1 free internet marketing source there is.

Articles Can Target Your Market Directly!

Years ago I wrote an article about “Content Management Systems”. I did this because my company at the time was increasingly getting into creating content management systems for our clients. By writing tips for companies to read about “CMS”, it ultimately brought a great deal of leads to my front door step. The key is that you can target your perfect client’s by writing tips that will attract them to your door.

Even Small Local Companies Can Target Their Market!!

Do you rely on clients that are residing in your area? Not to worry, writing articles can also help you attract people locally. Each article that you write allows you to have an “Author Resource Box”, or “About The Author” at the bottom of your articles. You will be able to use your author box in order to target your local market. Here’s how to do it…

Example:

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux is the owner of “Article99″ who operates in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. If you live near our area, please call us (000) 000-0000.

==END==

Having an author box like the one above will help you target people from “Hamilton & surrounding areas”. Search engines go through articles wherever they are and they look at the content within the article. By adding references to your local area, you’re helping search engines index your article for that local market. Here’s how it works…

If someone types in “Article Marketing In Hamilton” who’s article do you think will show up??? THIS ONE! This is because of the targeted content + the targeted area. Search engines are always looking for a city/province/country reference points which they utilize within their different search engines for many countries world wide.

In order to give you an example you can relate to.. read this one!

Let’s say you write an article about “Back Pain” and you insert your local area at the bottom of the article. When search engines find that article, they will list your article within searches like “Back pain specialists in Hamilton”. See how the topic of the article has now allowed your business to prosper locally?

In Conclusion:

If you have a marketing budget, hire a copywriter to write articles for you and promote your business online while targeting your local marketing through your author resource box. If you don’t have a budget don’t worry, you’re not alone , you’ll have to get your creative mind in gear and write the article yourself, which is by the way what most of us do!

————————————
Do You Want to Generate Massive Google Adsense Income Running Your Own Article Directory?

Click Here to Start Your Very Own Article Directory Right Now:

==> www.marktse.com/source-code-files2/#1

————————————
Martin Lemieux is the owner of the following article directories. Be sure to register for an author account, and get extensive promotion for your articles!

Submit Articles To:
www.Article99.com – Authors Club.
www.MyFamilyLiving.com – Family Related.
www.Smartads.info – Business Related.

————————————
You may reprint this free article on your own website, blog, and ezine by reserving the resource box.

6 Serious Article Writing Deficiencies, and 6 Ways You Can Fix Them

This article reveals six common article writing mistakes. You will also discover how you can avoid these mistakes easily.

————————————
Featured Article by John Young

As a writer and editor of The Digital Camera Zone, I spend hours every day scouring the ezine barns for articles to put in front of an information hungry public.

I definitely find a lot of articles, all right. They number in the thousands. Because I need content to feed a voracious audience, I select as many as I can even though I’m often not really happy with many of them.

“Why”, I can hear you ask, “do you publish articles that you are not happy with?”

Well, the answer lies in several unfortunate deficiencies in many of the articles published in article barns…

Inadequate Content

Many articles are glaringly superficial. The author may start with a good premise, say, the need to research out digital cameras before buying one, but then drops the ball.

In essence, the only thing the article says, in 500 – 600 words or so, is “Do your homework”.

- There are no concrete suggestions as to how to do the research.

- There are no suggested sources where the reader can go to find information.

- There are no criteria by which the reader can decide which camera is best for her.

In short, the article might not as well have been written. The writer is merely telling the reader what she already knew and provides no real information. Remember: it’s not “content that is king¨; it’s quality content that is king.

Overdependence on Keyword Analysis

Just about every article on writing articles for the web emphasizes that your creation should be “rich” in the keywords your readership is inputting into the search engines.

The trouble comes when you try to include all of the right keywords in your article so that people will find and read it. The danger is that you actually degrade the content of the article and make it less useful.

Not Grabbing the Reader’s Attention at the Beginning

There’s nothing that attracts a reader more quickly to an article than a short story, anecdote or personal experience that identifies her with the subject.

This anecdote or short story should be based on experience, either your own, an acquaintance, or a plausible situation, and should confront the reader with a problem, immerse her in a dilemma, or invoke an emotion that directly leads to the solution posed by the article.

Many article writers start firing facts at the reader and doggedly go on in the same paragraph to advance the solution, without really building up the reader’s curiosity or expectations.

No Organization

Many writers, when they decide it’s time to pump out their daily (or minute-ly) articles, sit down and write paragraph after paragraph until the word count reaches 850 words or so without any discernible organization to their work.

Then they stop, and fire it off.

So Sub-Heads or Bullets

We load up the article with long paragraphs which exhibit no logical breaks.

The article has no:

- Subheads. A pithy subhead for each paragraph will pique your reader’s interest and lead her into it. If your readers don’t encounter at least one subhead after reading a couple of paragraphs, you’ve probably lost them.

- Bullets. If you’ve got several points you want to make in a paragraph, create as many bullets as you need. Don’t overdo it of course. Bullets are like salt.

- Numbers. If you’ve got sequential steps you want the reader to take, number them. It makes it so much easier to figure out what you’re trying to say.

Grammatical and Spelling Mistakes

- Gramatical Mistakes. Yes, you knew this one was coming-things like “your¨, when you mean “you’re¨; “its¨ when you meant “it’s¨.

- Spelling Errors. Your reader will assume that if you can’t spell, you don’t know what you’re talking about.

- Incomplete Sentences. Have a subject, a verb and an object unless you’re being fancy, and know you’re being fancy.

- Missing Words. Missing words, for example, “I went New York”, are enough to blow any reader away. My question is, “You went what?”

If your article contains any of these stoppers, your readership will never get as far as your Resource Box.

So What’s the Final Solution? Hire a Professional?

No, you are the pro. Here’s what you can do to make your articles sizzle:

1) Read professionally written articles on the web until you’ve absorbed their style.

2) Develop your own voice. Do this by writing and writing.

3) Paste a picture of your hypothetical reader on the computer, and write to that person. What do you need to say to catch and keep their attention?

4) Break it up. Use subheads, bullets, and numbers. Keep pulling the reader ahead with your subheads.

5) Edit.

- Read and re-read what you’ve written; cut out unneeded words. Think economy: less is more.

- Get somebody else to read it – somebody who neither loves you nor hates you.

- Sleep on it. Never send out an article the same day you wrote it. Your brain will “cook¨ overnight and you’ll think of all kinds of things you needed to say…and change.

- Read it from the bottom up. This is a good way to catch typos after you’ve looked at it for too long.

- Read it out loud.

- Do a spell check. In this modern age of spell checking word processors, how can anybody submit an article that contains misspelled words?

6) Beware of the spell check. It doesn’t catch words used in the wrong context. .

The bottom line is, take more time with your stuff. Write something that will make ezines glow like comets and you’ll see your dreams come true.

————————————
Click Here to Discover How You Can Quickly and Easily Submit an Unlimited Number of Your Articles to Over 63,741 People on 932 Article Announcement Forums, Groups, and Websites:

==> www.marktse.com/recommend/article-submission/

————————————
John Young is a writer with a scientific and technical John Young has been writing since he was, well very young, and is now 62. Although he has a scientific background (degree in Chemistry), and several years IT and Programming experience, he is interested in a variety of subjects and is presently setting up a number of ezines. He lives in California with his wife and pet cat “Bear”. Check out his new ezine “The Digital Camera Zone” at www.pcreveal.com/digitalcamera and his Informational Marketing site at www.ebook-marketing-software.com where you’ll find a handy free tool (Article Creator) that really helps with article organization, as well as books writing.

————————————
You may reprint this free article on your own website, blog, and ezine by reserving the resource box.