Article Marketing
We receive frequent calls and emails from people asking us if article marketing works and if it is worth it. Our response is always the same. YES! Articles can generate free leads and the best part is that once you write them, and if they are good, they will be read and syndicated over and over and over.
You will see incredible results, as far as traffic to your site is concerned, when you begin submitting articles. It's not instantaneous because it takes time for your site to be crawled and for the back links to be recognized by the search engines. But as soon as they are, your site will jump in the rankings. And, once your site is higher in the rankings, your site will receive more traffic.
They key to article marketing is to be consistent and know which keywords to sprinkle in your article. (Below are simple steps on how to find keywords. You will also see a video that goes over keywords). Once you master this technique, it will make a difference in your marketing.
If you're not comfortable writing an article, take a look at the sample articles that are posted on this page.
You can contract an article writer. I've seen some bids for articles that are $1.25 per 100 words and some article writers charge per article. For example, 5 articles, 500 words for $50. I would get several quotes and I would also ask for sample articles. You can also visit: http://www.ezinearticles.com/ to get ideas on articles.
If you're creative and love to write, then writing an article shouldn't be difficult at all. You will be writing an article on something you are knowledgeable about and it's not going to be much work at all.
Here are some topics that a gift basket owner might write about. First, you need to think like your customers: what might they search for when they go-line?
* For many holidays, people go on-line to look for unique holidays gifts. The gift basket business owner might write about how people from different back rounds celebrate those holidays, and how a gourmet gift basket fits into the celebration.
* For your customers who have their own businesses, write an article about how gift baskets can be used as thank you gifts or why they might want to send a gift basket to a solicit new business.
* If a lot of your customers have kids in college, your article could describe gift baskets that can be sent to students during exam time.
The better you know your customers, the more you can write articles to match their needs and interests.
Here are some more basic strategies for beginning to write articles.
First off, what do you want to write about? This will vary depending on who your target audience is.
For example, don't write about cosmetics if you're in the healthcare business. If you are targeting Home Business Opportunity Seekers, think about the problems they may have and how you could solve those through an interesting informative article. Always remember that when you are writing articles, you are not selling. Always give lots of great content.
Below are four main outlines in writing articles.
1. Tips - Especially in the form of a list "Top Seven Tips To.." It's a simple strategy of writing a report, gathering a few tips, writing a few sentences on each bullet point and summarizing your topic.
2. Tutorials - Teaching and educating your audience on a topic that you know more about than they do.
3. Reviews - Especially about products, systems, and opportunities. This is something I don't see very often. Think about the products or software you have recently bought.
4. Your Opportunity - Why not do a little keyword search on what people are searching along with your company? Maybe "company name forum" or "company name review" or "company name compensation plan". You can blanket the internet with articles and reports for your opportunity in very little time because very few people take the time to do this. (see keyword information below).
Important. You will need a fantastic strong headline title.
Titles starting with "How to" and are proposed in a question format generally get the best response.
Below are two videos.
Video #1 is about article marketings and keywords.
Video #2 is a great video to watch if you need help fiinding keywords. The video talks about blogging but you can use the same technique for article marketing. We also listed simple steps on how to find keywords.
Keywords:
Let's go over keywords because keywords are one of the most important parts of your marketing. Once you know which long tail keywords to use, you can write your articles around them. When you master keywords you take your marketing to the next level!
Your goal is to find keywords that people are searching for. Next, you write articles/blogs pertaining those keywords so they can land on your blog or article and then visit your site.
Great tool to help you find keywords
1st step: Go to Google Adwords Keyword tool
2nd step: type in a keyword. (get creative, think what your customer is looking for)
Keyword (for the opportunity)
enter keyword: Gift Basket Business online
Keyword (for the gifts)
enter keywords: spa baskets, infant gifts, flowers, cookie bouquets (look at your store and
pick categories)
3rd step: If you typed keywords: Gift Basket Business Online, you will see a list of keywords.
You want to find keywords that are competitive enough, but not too competitive.
We recommend to find keywords that have 4,000 - 16,000 in Local monthly search volume
Stay away from keywords that are too competitive.
For example: the keyword "opening your own business" has 60,500 Local Monthly Searches. It's too competitive and you won't be ranked on google's front page.
These are good keywords to blog or write articles about the opportunity:
Gift Basket Business (5,400 Local Monthly Searches)
The gift business (2,900 Local Monthly Searches ..a little low but less competition)
Business Gift Gasket (4, 400 Local Monthly Searches)
Basket Business ( 6,600 Local Monthly Searches)
business gift ideas (5,400 Local Monthly Searches)
Home business ideas (14,800 Local Monthly Searches)
Home businesses online
(4,400 Local Monthly Searches)
(4,400 Local Monthly Searches)Business home online (27,100 Local Monthly Searches)
Other keywords to research:
how to own my own business
running your own business
how to make an online business
These are good keywords to blog or write articles about the gifts:
Spa Gift Baskets (6,600 Local Monthly Searches)
Spa Baskets (8,100 Local Monthly Searches)
Unique gift basket (6,600 Local Monthly Searches)
Gift baskets for women (6,600 Local Monthly Searches)
Valentine gift basket (8,100 Local Monthly Searches)
Valentine day gift basket (6,100 Local Monthly Searches)
Corporate gift basket (5,400 Local Monthly Searches)
gift basket for men (14,800 Local Monthly Searches)
** To find more keywords, go to your store and look at the categories.
i.e. baby gifts, flowers, gifts for tweens.
4th step: Now that you found the keywords that you wish to blog or create an article,
Use your keywords often in your articles/blog. A good formula is to repeat your keyword:
* Once Per Title (always use the keywords in your title)
* Once Per Paragraph (don't go overboard with the keywords, use one keyword per paragraph)
* Once Per Resource Box
The next important factor of article marketing is to have a powerful Author Resource Bio.
Your author bio box is your tool to promote your own website and personal brand that can be used to gain unlimited visitors to your website. Remember, the people who read your article will want to read more about the same topic that you have written about, so be sure to send them to more of your additional content.
The trick is to make your Resource Box "sticky" and strike the readers curiosity to get a "click through". The more people click on your link, the more people are visiting your capture lead page and the more people will subscribe to your list. This is one way to generate leads!
What's key in designing your resource box is to keep your readers so captivated that they will be thinking to themselves, wow, I have to go and read more about her, perhaps she can help me in my business (or if you're selling products, etc, etc).
Ask yourself these important questions:
What have you got to offer them?
Why should they go to your website?
Tell your prospect exactly what to do and WHY!
There are hundreds of article directories where you can submit your articles. The best part is that it's free to submit articles.
Submit Your Articles
The next step is to submit additional original articles to article directories. Doing this will help you get back links to your website. And while original content on your site is important, back links are just as important because they carry serious weight with the search engines.
The way back links work is that they point back to your website. This is sort of like a popularity contest. The more back links you have pointing to your site the more popular your site is and the higher it is ranked. As you can see the more articles you can submit to directories that contain links to your website, the better off your site will be and the higher it will rank in the search engines.
Here are a few to get started.
There are hundreds of article directories where you can submit your articles. The best part is that it's free to submit articles.
www.ezinearticles.com (great site because they also offer article marketing tutorials and they get massive amount of traffic)
www.1articleworld.com
www.amazines.com
www.article99.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articlebase.com
www.buzzle.com
www.articlesnatch.com
www.articledashboard.com
www.webpronews.com
www.articlebar.com
www.articlebeach.com
www.articlebiz.com
www.searchwarp.com
www.selfgrowth.com/articles.html
www.articlefeeder.com
www.bigarticle.com
www.articleavenue.com
www.a1articles.com
www.articlegarnden.com
www.ideamarketers.com
www.isnare.com
Still undecided if article marketing is worth it?
Here are more reasons why Article Marketing is so effective:
1. People are looking for an expert to tell them what to do and how to do it. We all want to learn from the best.
2. People trust the person writing the article as they've taken a stance as a guru, so the validity of your words will have strong weight.
3. When people read articles online, you have an "Author Resource Box" that is attached tells the reader: Who you are, what you do, and a link to your website.
