article_marketing.htm

A: You’ll get different tips from different writers, but I’ll share a few here. There are many marketers who use articles for marketing who say that you should keep your articles between 400 and 600 words. There are others who disagree with that.

Still others think that there are many reasons that the length of your article depends on what you are writing about.

For instance, one of the marketers, Yuwanda Black, who uses articles to market her work and herself, states that there may be times when shorter articles are justified; these include tips of the day or editorial pieces. However, she also states that when she’s reading an article written to sell something and drive traffic to a site, she wants more details in this kind of article.

She finds it frustrating when the writer just touches on the tip of the iceberg points and leaves out the meat and potatoes of the article. When she finds sites like this, often the owners are just interested in making the sale rather than educating their readers. This is a turn off for her. She feels that when you educate your readers through articles, you are building trust through the knowledge that you are sharing.

She also feels that many people have less expertise than they lead you to believe—too often, the information she finds in the articles can be found searching for herself through search engines like Google. She feels that when you share a personal experience and show your readers who, what, when, where, and why aspects of the topic, it is a true exchange of a first-hand experience so the readers know what can and cannot work.

She also feels that when you can back up your article with a personal experience, you can build trust through educating your readers. She believes that educating your readers is more effective than writing a perfect sales letter to keep your readers, customers, and prospects interested. This may not always make an immediate sale, but it is likely to result in more sales and repeated sales down the road, because you have taken the time to establish a relationship with your reader.

She doesn’t like being told what to do in how-to articles. She would rather be told what not to do, so she avoids making as many of the same mistakes and learns from whomever wrote the article. She would rather read how and why you failed at an attempt to do what you are doing rather than the same old rehashes of how-to do something.

Yuwanda feels that admitting to failure can increase sales because it does three things for her as a reader:

It tells her that you are passionate about your service or product.

It tells her that you are human.

It tells her you care.
By showing others your failures, you will earn trust, you will be liked by your readers, and they will buy from you for that.
Yuwanda’s tip for writing your articles is that it’s not about dispensing generic information, it’s about dispensing helpful, specific, information that will usually call for more than 500 to 600 words. A reader wants to read something a feel they can immediately go put it into practice or learn from it.

Now that you have one marketer’s point of view on what you should put in your articles, you can apply some of the principles when you write the perfect article for your own readers. Remember, the length of your article should depend on how much you want to educate your readers.

You should only write about what you actually know. When you write about what you know, including your failures as well as your successes, you can create an article that will provide “sticky” content for your site—something that makes people “stick around” your site looking for more great information.

Another writer, Brenda Hoffman, feels that writing about what you know in a specific field, such as painting, helps create your reputation as an expert in your field. She agrees with Yuwanda about the value of reading articles from people who know what they are talking about.

Brenda feels that the following tips can help you create more informative articles for people who are searching for pertinent information to their wants and needs:

Write about topics that are relevant to your industry, but write about things that are not considered general knowledge. For example, why is outdoor paint different from indoor paint? To answer this, you might want to explain what the difference is and why.

Write your headline so that it tells about the content of your article and try to place main keywords in the headline.

Unlike Yuwanda, Brenda feels that if your article is going to be more than 500 words, break your article down into two or three articles rather than one long article. In some cases, this may be best. In my own case, writing the Marketing Tidbits has been broken down over a series of articles on different venues of marketing rather than one long article.

Brenda says that outlining your articles before you start with main points that are going to be made can help writers create a perfectly flowing article for their readers.

Brenda keeps a notepad handy while writing her articles in case she has other article ideas while writing her current article.

Write a title and a few sentences of an article in your word processor, and when you get to about 400 words it is time to think about writing a conclusion to your article.

Create a byline for you and your business so that you can place it at the end of every article to attract visitors to your Website (always include the URL!). By doing this, you can create a viral marketing effect for your business. You can do this by submitting your articles to other sites and when readers find your articles informative, they will be more apt to visit your Website that you have placed in your byline.
Now we will move to what Melanie Schwear has to say about how and why you should write quality articles. Melanie states that you need to know the how’s and why’s of article writing in order to be able to produce unique quality articles.

Melanie believes that you should either already know the subject that about which you want to write or be able to research the topic effectively to create an article that is worth the read by your viewers. Over time, practice will improve your research skills so that you can write an article on a topic about which you had little prior knowledge.

Melanie believes that a good article should solve a problem or answer questions for the readers. That way, you meet the needs of internet searchers who are looking for information that can help them solve a problem they are having. An example of this would be the articles that you find throughout the IAHBE about different aspects of home business operations.

Overall, being able to create and write well-informed articles about what you know, products or services, and on topics that are of interest can help you brand your business as well as yourself as a writer. Remember this above all else: you should write in a tone as if you are speaking to your readers face to face.

Q: I would like to know how writing articles can help increase traffic to my business, products, services or Website?

A: The great thing about using articles for your business is that they can be a free way of advertising you business. Yet, while you do not have to pay money to use this type of advertising, you will need to factor in your time, but marketing your business through articles can be most effective for those who are on a no-or-low-cost budget for their business.

Here are some tips on why writing articles can be a great way to drive traffic to your products and services:

Free Advertising

By submitting your written articles to other Websites, you are gaining free advertising. You will not want to write your articles as a sales pitch for your business or products, but you can add a resource box at the bottom of your article for readers to view. You will want your articles to be informative and useful for your readers as discussed above.

Reach More People and Find Linking Partners

You can post your articles on your own site and other Websites too. There are ezines, article directories, freelance writing sites that pay you for your content, and various other Websites that look for people who want to submit their writings. You will gain exposure for your business by doing this and you can also gain linking exposure to other Websites from webmasters who find your articles useful and pertinent to their Websites. This increases your link popularity—an important part of internet marketing.

Higher Search Engine Rankings

You will want to create a new page one your site for each of your articles. Optimize your articles with keywords and phrases. By doing both of these two things, you will make your Website more user-friendly. By using top-rated keywords and meta tags, your site will have a better chance of receiving a higher ranking with the search engines.

Keyword-Rich Sites

When writing your articles, make sure that you do not over-do your keywords; search engines frown upon keyword stuffing of content. You will want to have a nice even blend of keywords in your article content to have a better chance of optimization.

References and Testimonials

Using the good comments that you receive after submitting your articles is a great way to help endorse your articles and add even further content to your Website. This also makes a good impression on your other customers.