e marketing involves writing free reprint articles and submitting the articles to online publishers. Each time your article gets picked up for publication, the resource box (which is an author bio that includes a backlink to your website) is published with it.
So, each time your article is republished, your website receives another backlink. An increase in backlinks can increase your search engine rankings for your keywords and also drive traffic to your site whenever someone reads your article and clicks the link in your resource box.
An added perk of article marketing is that it's a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your niche, as your articles demonstrate your depth of knowledge on your topic and serve as effective teaching tools for your readers.
As you're just getting started using this tried and true marketing tool, you might feel overwhelmed at the thought of embarking on a new skill. Relax!
Yes, there are many ways to tweak and improve your article marketing results as you get more experience, but at the beginning, if you'll just keep the following 15 tips in mind you'll make a strong start:
1) Consistency is key.
Article marketing is a long term marketing tool, so don't submit one or two articles and then expect to see major results. For best results, you will submit at least 1 article a month for an extended period of time (preferably for the lifetime of your website). It usually takes anywhere from 3-4 months to see a change in search engine ranking, so be patient!
2) Curious about where your article is being re-published?
Do a Google search for your article title (putting quotes around it), and you'll see a list of sites that have picked up your article for publication. Directories can take 2-3 days to publish an article after it's been submitted, so you might want to wait a few days before doing this search.
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4) Write for your target audience, rather than just search engines.
First and foremost, your articles should be effective teaching tools for your human readers, so focus on writing articles that will educate them. Keywords are important, but don't get over focussed on them. If you will simply write on the topic of your website, your keywords should naturally pop up in your articles.
5) Write on the topic of your website.
In order to get targeted traffic to your website you should always write on the topic of your website. If your website is about ballroom dancing, then you will write articles about ballroom dancing.
6) Don't write about your own products, website or business.
Do write articles on the topic of your website, but don't write articles that are specifically about your website or the products you sell there. That would make the article self-serving/promotional, and "promotional article" is the most common reason articles are declined by publishers.The proper place to talk about yourself is in your resource box.
7) Be sure your articles are 100% original.
Publishers want quality content, so don't be tempted to submit PLR articles or articles that are sold to innumerable people with the right to claim 'authorship'. If you write your own articles based on your expertise you can't go wrong.
8) Word counts count.
Aim for a word count of 700-800, as that length of article is most attractive to ezine editors and other publishers.
9) 'HowTo' articles are an article marketer's bread and butter.
10) Space out your submissions -- don't submit bunches of articles at a time.
11) Some publishers will send you a confirmation email when they publish your article, but don't expect that every publisher will.
12) Wondering how many backlinks your website has?
Just type this into the Google search box:
link:www.yourwebsite.com
(Just substitute your own URL for the 'your website' part)
13) Sleep on your article for 24 hours, then go back and re-read it.
When you look at your article with fresh eyes you'll see mistakes you totally missed before.
14) Proofread, proofread, proofread!
Once your article is submitted to a directory publishers will start republishing it on their websites. These are websites over which you have no control, so be sure that your article appears exactly as you'd like it (with no typos!) before submitting it.
15) The resource box is extremely important!
Make sure your resource box has a little bio info, your name, a reason to click through to your site, and your URL. For best results, link to a single website.
These are your basic, need-to-know tips--now you have more than enough knowledge to get started submitting articles and driving targeted traffic back to your website!
