3 Mistakes To Avoid When Submitting Content to Article Directories

Whether you are a newbie internet marketer or an online home-business owner, Article Marketing will be an integral part of you online marketing campaign.

At times it will seem as though you are out of ideas about what to write, which may lead to articles that lack direction, annoy potential customers and incorrectly promote the most important thing: Your Product!

In this stage of the Information Age, customers are more savvy than ever and refuse to be sold to, thus primarily demanding information-based marketing.  It can be easy while struggling to write your articles to forget that information-based marketing is the most effective technique for targeting prospects, leading them to your site and converting them in to buyers.  This is why it is very important that your article marketing, submissions and publications be done correctly.

There are the common mistakes people make when writing and submitting work to article directories.  Let’s have a look at each one:

1_   The Article is Promoting Instead of Informing

There is only one reason for writing articles to market you online business and that is to inform people.  Forget this crucial detail and you will lose your readers’ interest and they will click away to someone else’s site faster that you can spell Mississippi.

If your article is informative, interesting and content-rich your audience will read on to the end.  There you will invite them to click on to your resource box and to visit your website.

There are three benefits to article writing, which are all part of your optimization efforts; these are: branding yourself or your online marketing opportunity, lead generation and promotion.  However, if your article is not primarily focused on sharing good content, it will fail to promote these three benefits because no one will be interested in reading it.

It is recommended that you quickly map out an outline before you start on your article, thus ensuring that it fulfills its function and is laid out in a coherent fashion, with a beginning a middle and an end.   In your outline, also remember to write down the key points and sentences that you wish to discuss in your article.

2_  The Article is Failing to Maximize its Search Engine Potential

It goes without saying that the more articles you write and submit to articles directories, the more links you will generate back to your website.

However, it is essential that your article be keyword rich if you want more visitors to your site and better search engine results.  One should mention keywords at strategic places yet without overdoing them.

Being keyword-rich and supplying great content, your articles might get picked up by publishers (online and off).  All it takes is one publisher with a hundred thousand readers to increase your potential audience overnight.  That’s what we call leverage!  Being picked up by a publisher will also benefit your search engine results.

Therefore, before starting on any article, it is important to research different keywords that come to mind when brainstorming about your business.  Test the keywords in Google to see how frequently these words are searched.

There are also some great free Keyword and SEO courses offered by Wordtracker.com

3_  The Article Isn’t Reaching the Right Reader

At some point while you were writing your article, you might have forgotten about who was going to read it.  You might think that any link is a good link.  Yet you could not be more wrong.

Whatever your online business, before you embark in marketing of any kind it is essential that you work out who your target audience, your niche, will be.  The more targeted your marketing campaign the more success you will see in your business because one cannot please all.   In other words, talk to your niche reader in a tone and language they can connect with.  The more the readers associate themselves with you the more they will trust you enough to buy something from you.

Here are some questions you must define to determine who your target audience is:

1-    What do they do for a living?

2-    What struggles do they face?

3-    What is important to them?

4-    What are their values?

5-    What is their current income?

6-    What are their income goals?

7-    What types of activities do they enjoy?

8-    What is their definition of success?

9-    Do they use any industry “lingo” or terminology?

There also exists article directories geared to a specific group of people searching for and interested in highly-targeted content.  When relevant to your business, taking the time to write articles specifically designed to be submitted to these directories will make the difference between an article that gets read by thousands of readers and one that gets read by hundreds of thousands of targeted, niche-specific readers.  Obviously, the second scenario is the best for your campaign and for your wallet…

So take the time to research the different article directories.  Find one that caterers to your niche audience and then submit articles designed to interest those readers.

SATURATE EVERY PART OF YOUR LIFE!

Jasmin

www.jasminomeara.biz

How To Write A Great Article For Your Internet Marketing Business

So you’ve finally taken the plunge and decided to start your own internet marketing business!

Having studied the different marketing strategies available for promoting your new home-based internet business, you’ve come to realise that article marketing is an attractive, effective and low cost strategy for driving potential customers to your website.

However for most of you the thought of writing articles is enough to have you packing your briefcase and crawling back on your hands and knees begging for your old jobs back.

Although we have been trained throughout our school years to write papers, somehow it is by far one of the marketing strategies newbie online marketers put off the longest.

Let me put it in to perspective for you:  If you had a choice between writing an article thus building your own business and taking control of your own destiny versus not writing an article, going back to your old day job and being at the mercy of your employer’s whims…which would you choose?

Article marketing has long been the bread and butter of every Marketer.  However, with rumors circulating that Google might soon ban home-based businesses from marketing on Adwords, perfecting your Article Marketing skills is now wiser than ever.

To write a good article quickly and effortlessly, all you need to remember are a few methods and procedures you learned back in high school.

The number one tip to writing a great article is to always write an outline.  An outline will help you organise your thoughts and help you write a cohesive and structured article.

An outline helps you order your arguments and assures you don’t forget to include important points and prevents you from repeating yourself.  With an outline there’s no reason why you should stare at a blank Word page for hours wondering what direction to take with your writing.

As you would never leave for a trip without directions, nor would you start writing an article without knowing where you are heading.  Therefore it is imperative to have a solid outline when sitting down to write an article.

While drafting your outline, remember that there are three major parts to any article: the introduction, the body and the conclusion.  If there are any specific ideas or sentences that you deem especially important to include in your article, write those down in your outline as well.

Here is a quick example of how I like to map out my outlines:

TOP 3 MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR PROMOTING YOUR WEBSITE

Introduction

1.  Writing

1.1 Articles

1.1.1

1.1.2

1.2 Press Releases

1.2.1

1.2.1.1

1.3 Blog

2. Google Adwords

2.1 Keyword search

2.1.1 Keyword search tools

3. Video Marketing

3.1 Youtube

Conclusion

Ok, I’ve just done that really quickly to show you how I subdivide my outline when preparing to write an article.

In the introduction you will start in a manner that will grab your reader’s attention.  Then you will quickly summarize what it is you intend to cover in your article.

The body of the article will comprise of three key points (as illustrated by numbers 1,2,3 in the example above).  If within each key point there is more that one idea to elaborate on, subdivide that paragraph in to multiple elements and subdivide again if needed (1.1, 1.1.1, 2.1, etc…).  These are what we call sub topics and sub titles.  They should also be introduced by a great opening sentence that grabs the attention of your reader.

In the conclusion, you will wrap up your points and end the article with a final thought.

You see, it’s no more difficult than it was in high-school!

With a well-defined outline there is no reason for you to feel nervous writing.  With your “skeleton” outline, you will already know what you intend to write about and in what order.  All you need to do when writing the real thing is bulk out the paragraphs with content and facts.  The meat of the article so to speak.

You will probably have to write a draft or tweak your article a few times before you arrive at the finished product.  However, since you’ll be writing on a computer this will be so much easier than it was in the days of pen and paper.  After you’ve written a few articles, you will begin to notice how much faster you are at completing them.

Finally, as you are writing always make it a habit to reread what you have already written.  Make sure you have stuck to your outline.  It can be really easy to stray away from the outline once you start writing and ideas are flooding in.

If that’s the case, add your new ideas as sub topics in your outline.  This will ensure the idea is inserted in the correct place in the body of your arguments to flow coherently.

Remember that writing an outline is not a waste of time.  It will actually help you save time!

Find a way of illustrating your thoughts on paper that make sense to you and keep using that “skeleton” for all future articles.  It will prove to be a very helpful tool for you as you continue to grow your online marketing business.

Remember 10 good articles are better than 1 excellent article. Don’t worry about being a perfectionist.  Just be productive!

SATURATE EVERY PART OF YOUR LIFE!

Jasmin

www.jasminomeara.biz