Welcome to my blog – Internet Marketing Crossroads

My goal is to bring together the different aspects of Internet marketing, talk about the latest tactics, tools, and strategies, and most importantly to provide the how to’s of setting up and running your campaigns.

Marketing used to be a dreaded word, providing success only to the “big guy’s”. But the Information Highway has changed all that. There are many strategies that are literally cost free and fairly easy to do - so that absolutely anyone can put together successful and profitable campaigns.

Your part in this is to provide comments, sharing your views and experiences. Tell me I’m right (I like that!), tell me I’m wrong (nicely, of course) and between us we’ll provide insight and help to others who may be struggling with their marketing strategies.

To your Internet marketing success!

Saturday, April 7, 2007

7 Sure-fire Ways To Get Your Articles Read

If your not writing articles, you should be! It’s a great way to show your expertise, build your credibility, get links to your site, and market your products.

I know, many of you simply dread writing articles. You may feel it’s just too much hard work for the result – “I’m not a writer, who’s going to read my article?”.

Come on now, if you know something (you do know something don’t you?) you can write about it effectively and passionately.

People are hungry for information on topics that interest them or that will affect their personal lives or their business’s bottom line.

If you have a website, you obviously chose a niche that is important to you and that your interested in. If you can talk about your topic, you can write about it!

Writing a good article doesn’t have to be strenuous or mind-boggling. Just get your thoughts together on how you can help someone with a particular problem and go with it.

Write as you talk. Make it personal. If your passionate, show your passion. If you’re funny, you can use that too. Just be yourself.

Here are 6 ways to get your articles read:

1. Choose your subject carefully. Do some research before choosing a topic. Make sure that your subject is of interest to your audience. Forums in your niche area is a great place to find out what people are interested in or concerned about.

A good approach is to find a problem that is of concern to your audience and write an article that resolves the problem. Not only will people want to read the article but it will cast you as a problem solver and strengthen your credibility.

2. Write attention-grabbing titles. The article title is often the most important factor in whether or not your article is read.

The title should reach out and grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read your article. It should be interesting, provocative, even humorous. Use your title to evoke curiosity, and reach out to your readers wants and needs.

I find that using the biggest benefit that your reader will receive when they read your article is a great place to start when creating a title. Write several variations. Use your Thesaurus for word variations. Tweak the titles and then choose the one that you feel suits your article and audience.

3. Make it personal. This works both ways. Reach out to your readers by personally addressing them and their concerns. Use “you” or “your” frequently. In other words make them feel you are speaking directly to them.

On the other side of the coin, use your own personal experiences. Let your readers know that you have experienced the same issues that concern them and show how you overcame the problem(s).

4. Use short sentences and paragraphs. Short sentences and paragraphs are much easier for a reader to follow. Online readers have a very short attention span and an article containing long blocks of text may simply be ignored.

So keep it short. Three to five sentences are usually enough for one paragraph. Also beware of run-on sentences (That’s one of my problems – I tend to run on, and on!). Keep your sentences short as well.

5. Use numbers or bullets to break up text or show points. The use of bold text will also help to make words and ideas stand out.

Formatting your numbered or bullet points with indentations so your article doesn’t look like one big square box of words can also be helpful – and adds a little flair and pizzazz to your articles.

6. Utilize figures and examples to make points more authoritative. Don’t be afraid to use specific information from another source to drive a point home. Just make sure you show the source where your figures or information came from.

Having third-party back up to what you are saying proves that you’ve done your homework and that you really do know what your talking about.

7. Provide resource information where your readers can obtain more information on the article topic. These can be your own websites or other resources.

Don’t worry about losing customers, good outgoing links are helpful to page ranking and positioning in search engines – and again you are being sooo helpful and knowledgeable that your readers will remember this and come back to read more of your articles.

Writing your own articles is really not that daunting! If you follow the tips I’ve outlined here I know you can put out some really great articles that demand reading. “Practice makes perfect” and the more you write the better you will become.

If you’re still unsure about writing your own articles from scratch, using PLR articles will give you a good starting place. You can find sites that provide PLR articles here:
http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/private-label-rights.html

By all means take my free eCourse on how to use PLR products. You will find it here:
http://www.ebookcrossroads.com/using-private-label-rights.html
Remember content is king! If you own a website you need good articles for your newsletter, promotional campaigns of your products or services and informational website content. These articles could become the key to success in your Internet endeavors. So take the plunge and get writing!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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