Article Marketing Tips from the Article Guy
Last week I listened to the a very good conference call with The Article Guy Jeff Herring, which was presented by The Blog Squad. If you check out Jeff’s author page on eZine Articles, you’ll see why he’s qualified to call himself the Article Guy.
The conference call presented some great practical tips to increase the effectiveness of your article marketing. I have just begun to do a bit of article marketing and I can see that it is a very effective way to get traffic to your site.
I want to pass along my notes from the conference call. There are a bit rough and my memory is a little foggy since the call was over a week ago…
–> Articles should be about 300 words.
Surprising since many consider a decent article to be 500 words, but Jeff says people like shorter articles better. Works of me, since in theory two 300 word articles does twice the work of one 600 worder.
–> An article writing process:
Create a seven tips article. Then write a companion article elaborating each of the tips. Then fill them all out and turn it into an eBook. Sell the eBook or give it away as a promotional tool.
I liked this one a lot and am working on a series based on this idea.
–> Put your keyword in the first 4 words of the title. Search engines favor keywords at the beginning of the title.
bad: “Top 7 Reasons You Need Dating Advice”
better: “Dating Advice: Top 7 Reasons You Need It”
–> In your summary present a problem and possible solution. This draws people into reading the article to find the solution.
This from one of Jeff’s articles:
Have you ever been so distracted by the “packaging” of someone that you did not notice the warning signs? Here are some strategies for staying out of The Packaging Trap.
–> Use the keywords properly in the article.
Use keyword at the beginning of the first sentence and then again in a bullet point in bold right after the first paragraph.
The goal of the article is to follow proper SEO to rank for your keyword AND to draw the reader through the article and into the resource box
–> The most important real estate is the resource box. Most people waste it completely by talking about themselves.
Use the WIIM [what's in it for me...the reader] test and the “who cares” test. Does anyone really care at the bottom of my article on Internet business if I have a diploma in computer technology…probably not a lick.
The best tip of the whole program was to get into sales mode right on the first line of the resource box and entice the reader to your site by offering them something of value.
Here’s an example resource box from one of Jeff’s articles:
Visit http://www.TheArticleGuy.com for more leading edge tips and tools for writing articles that bring you prospects, publicity and profits. You can also subscribe to our monthly Article Writing & Marketing Tips Newsletter. You are also invited to visit my Express-Start Article Writing Program for more information on the
next article writing tele-seminar.
Notice the linking techniques:
In the first line there is the complete URL to the site, and a clear benefit presented to the reader. Then the second line is to a free offer and uses a second link that has an anchor text of the keywords of the article.
The third line is a link to a product to purchase and also uses anchor text for the product.
Good formula…not a mention of the authors credentials or favorite shampoo.
–> Have an article directory on your website.
I liked this tip too. I even set up a test article directory using Article Dashboard [free and looks like excellent, although a little tough to set up if you are non-techie]. In a day or so, I’ve had 5 article submitted…that can’t be bad…free content.
For more resources from the conference call, here is another blog post from someone smart enough to do it right after the call, while they still remembered them.
Jon Symons
Wading through the murky waters of article marketing, so you don’t have to.
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Comments ( 6 )
J added these pithy words on Sep 21 06 at 9:04 pmJon— are you using Munius? Are you getting any results with it? Thus far I have had my Munius sites up for a couple of weeks and haven’t gotten one article, so I am a bit disapointed… I plan on giving it longer before sending to the circular filing cabinet.
-J
Jon added these pithy words on Sep 22 06 at 8:55 amHi J,
I have three sites where I installed Munius and they do actually get articles. However, I had to contact support for two of them, after not receiving any submissions for a long time, and it turned out that they weren’t in the Artemis database. Once they were added manually I started to get about 1 article a week.
The third one started working on it’s own.
Jon
Nneka added these pithy words on Sep 23 06 at 6:14 pmGreat tips Jon. I clearly need to be in on that call. I’ll search your site for a how-to. Or ask, “How do I get on the call?”
Thanks:-)
Jon added these pithy words on Sep 25 06 at 9:10 amNneka,
There is a download of the call that costs $9.95:
http://snipurl.com/CE_Audio
[not an affiliate link]
Or you could go to The Article Guy’s site [the very first link in the story] and I’m pretty sure he has a newsletter where he covers the same material.
Or you could do what I do and go to eZineArticles and search for Jerry Herring in the authors section and then you can see what he does and reverse engineer it.
Nneka added these pithy words on Sep 25 06 at 8:55 pmAhh! Thanks. Ezine Articles is where I’ll start.
J added these pithy words on Sep 26 06 at 12:05 pmI spoke too soon, one of my sites with Munius installed received three articles soon after my previous comment.
-J