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29th November 2007
Patricia
Jones
I like article marketing and find it an
enjoyable and profitable way of promoting my
websites. I never plan articles, the ideas just
come out of the blue from something I have seen
or heard. Once I start writing the words just
flow, but before I write an article there are
two things that I
consider.
1. Why am I writing the
article?
2.
Would it be of any use to webmasters for their
sites or for newsletter
publishers?
It does not take rocket science to figure that
I and every other article marketer am using
articles to benefit our own promotions, but
they will be of little benefit to us if we do
not produce quality articles that others will
actually want to read and use.
Owning my own article directory I have read
thousands of articles, many of which I would
never use on my other sites or in newsletters
and many I have declined for various reasons.
Let us consider the rights and wrongs of
articles starting at the beginning.
Attention Grabbing
Your title is your headline, there to grab
attention and many people never look past the
first 2 or 3 words. I could have called this
Sheep Do Not Mix With Article Marketing Success
but I want people who are interested in article
marketing and not sheep to read it. I am also
using keywords at the beginning of the title.
Another type of title that will not grab me is
The Top 20 Tips For Passionate Sex. It would be
more likely to create interest if it was
Passionate Sex My Top 20 Tips.
Writing Standards
Spelling and grammar are important. You are
promoting yourself and your business and you
need to present yourself as professional to be
taken seriously. I write my articles in Word
first and use the spell checker. I sometimes
fall out with it because I am English and
prefer not to use Americanised spelling.
If you have problems with writing but good
information the answer is to use a ghostwriter
or copywriter. There are plenty of good writers
advertising on the Internet and personally I
think that one good quality article will do
more for your business than 10 poor
articles.
Articles translated from another language using
software are not usually grammatically correct
and often difficult to understand.
Know Your Subject
Good advice for writers is that they should
always know and understand what they are
writing about or their articles have no
credibility. I was gobsmacked last week to read
an article about my own country that I knew to
be very ill informed and by somebody I
suspected had never set foot on our shores. The
guy could not even spell Britain right and as
his misspelling was in the title he sunk
without trace before he even started!
Original Copy
The best and most memorable articles are purely
original, thought provoking and offer different
viewpoints to a subject. Some writers submit
zillions of slightly changed or spun articles
about the same subject over and over; yawn.
They are boring and eminently unreadable after
the first one or two. There are exceptions
where writers are providing updates and news
about their chosen subjects. I would use those
articles for my sites.
Lists of quotes from the bible for instance are
not original articles. At least 90% should be
your own work and quotes only used as a point
of interest not as the whole article.
Submitting articles on behalf of others is
suspect, how do readers know whether you have
filched them or not? Plagiarism, not worth
going there, eagle eyes and google will find
you out!
Advertorial Blues
An advertorial is an advert written in article
form. They carry no unbiased information or
advice that would be of any help to anybody
interested in that subject. There are plenty of
places to advertise for free on the Internet,
so trying to fob adverts off as articles is
unfair on directory site owners or visitors who
want to read articles not adverts.
Link Usage
The reason most of us use Article Marketing for
promoting our businesses is to place links to
our websites in the author resource boxes
usually placed at the foot of articles.
I like to maximise the potential and use the up
to 3 links usually allowed. Many article
directories scripts automatically activate
links with the http:// prefix but some do not.
A problem can arise when articles are
automatically submitted if the script the site
uses strips the html so if you use html it is
better to include the URL also.
I use a company to submit my articles mainly to
ezines and blogs but prefer to submit to
directories manually mostly and then I can
activate the links myself and check out the
competition! I can also make sure that I am
following each particular sites guidelines.
Links within the article body, titles and
summaries are unacceptable on most directory
sites, but as you get 3 chances in the resource
boxes there is no point in pushing your luck.
Embedded links as I've used with this article
work better for the search engines but no more
than one link for each website.
Website links that are likely to be blacklisted
by the search engines such as for porn are also
not usable.
All Keyed Up
You will be asked to provide some keywords for
your articles so choose wisely. Study your
content and consider what somebody who might be
interested in your article is most likely to
enter into the search engines. A poor example
is if you are writing about search engine
optimisation and your title is SEO, Internet
Business Bread And Jam, you would not use jam
and bread as keywords unless you wanted to
attract hungry people. Apart from that your
articles credibility takes a nosedive if you do
not know what a good keyword is.
The keywords should reflect your content not
your resource box and overall the article
shouldn't contain more than 4-6% keywords.
Readability
Finally, your article should not be repetitive
and should be interesting. Short paragraphs
make it easier to read, text talk makes it more
difficult. All capitals in the article body or
title are a no no, they only stand out in the
sense that the reader feels shouted at and
nobody wants to feel like that.
500 words should be the minimum that you are
aiming for and PLR articles whether altered or
unaltered shouldn't be used unless just for the
initial idea.
I hope that you have found this interesting and
useful and that we get lots more quality
articles to read.
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