Write Articles to Get More Visitors
Marketing via articles is one of the best forms of free advertising on or offline that is available for bringing new visitors to our websites.
Why is that you ask?
Writing articles can lead to increased visitors to your website. The main reasons you’re writing an article is for people to read and learn about your topic and you. After writing an article you want it published of course. Getting it publshed is how you’re going to drive traffic to your site.
If you know your target market then the hardest part of the work has been done for you – that of assembling a list several thousand individuals to read your article.
You’ll want to submit it to ezine publishers, article directories and create a webpage on your site to display it and to submit to the search engines.
There are several things to consider if you decide to write and submit articles to ezines. The format for writing the article itself, finding ezines to submit it to and figuring out the right way to submit it to publishers so that it gets an above average chance of being used by the publisher.
Writing is hard work. At least for me that is. I tend to generally keep up with how the internet is evolving and develop an article from changes that I see going on.
Writing articles for ezines takes on a basic format that you should become familiar with.
If you haven’t already subscribed to several good, quality ezines do so immediately. You want to review the articles in them so you can get a basic idea of the layout of an article that publishers expect when you submit an article to them.
You’ll notice it has:
- A Title
- The Authors Name
- The Body or Content of the Article
- An Authors Resource Box
- Sentences are under 65 characters per line
Those are the five main components of articles that are typically submitted to ezine publishers. Your best bet is not to vary from it in your initial writing efforts.
Let’s take a look at each one of those components.
** The Title **
Often times you may not even come up with a good attention grabbing title until after you have finished your article. If you have a general idea of what your article is going to cover it may be helpful later on if you jot down
some ideas right away.
**The Authors Name **
Hey you should be able to come up with this on your own. Include yours just under the title of your article.
** The Body or Content **
By far the most important aspect of your article. The best articles address some kind of problem or concern that readers may be experiencing and are looking for help, guidance or a solution for. If you have identified a bonafide problem take the time to do the research to find a solution for it.
The solution could be in the form of a unique solution you yourself have found, an existing one that few people know about or you could provide several solutions from which the reader can choose the one best suited to their needs.
Some good articles also address concerns of people in certain areas of their life or business for which there is no clear cut solution. If you can present the facts, known or obscure data that will keep a reader informed on the subject or help them come to a conclusion on their own, it will work just as well.
Within the article it is always a nice affect if you can provide some online resources or links that a reader can use to help solve their own problem or gather information from which they can draw their own conclusions.
Keep in mind that you are not writing your article(s) for the fun of it. At least I hope you’ve given some thought to what you want to accomplish using this method. Your main purpose is to get a few if not several hundred of those readers to visit your website so that you can present them with your own offers for subscribing to your ezine, joining your affiliate program, membership site or buying one of your products.
Your efforts should be in presenting a good quality article to the publisher. Take your time writing about the subject you’ve chosen. Clearly the best method of writing on the
internet is a personal, one-to-one approach to writing, write as though you’re talking to a friend or relative you know very well.
** Authors Resource Box **
This is your byline. This allows everyone who reads your article to learn more about you and your business. You’ll include it at the end of your article and it should contain a short description of your site, product or service you offer, along with your url.
It’s the second most important section of your article. Here you can put between 4 to 6 lines of text. This is the only acceptable format for advertising yourself, your website, ezine, product, etc. Describe it in as great a detail as you can get into these few lines.
Publishers will exercise their own judgment and may shorten it to meet the standard criteria they have set for all submitted articles.
Here are some more Quick Tips to remember about writing your article:
- Keep your sentences and paragraphs short
- Use action words throughout your article
- Use examples from your own experience
- Write as though you’re talking to one person
- Personalize your message
- Use plenty of white space
- Use small understandable words
- Use subheadings
- Don’t hyphenate words at the end of sentences
Just one good article on a subject that is relevant to your target market and the target market of the ezine that you’re trying to get it published in, will produce some great publicity for you. Invite publishers of ezines with similar interests as yours to publish the article.
You really don’t want to slant it towards one of your products, an affiliate program or have your own links plastered throughout your article. Just about all publishers I know will recognize that kind of writing as a cheap effort to advertise a product at their expense.
Think about it – if a publisher wanted to see a product, etc promoted in his ezine he would put one of his own in it – not some stranger he has never met. Don’t try to disguise an advertisement for one of your products as an article. Most publishers will see right through this scheme.
The length of your article should probably be between 400 to 1000 words. Any less than 400 doesn’t give enough depth to a subject. Any more than 1000 can be too long for some ezine publishers who try to keep the content of there ezine to a maximum size for purposes of distribution and reader attention.
OK, so you’ve got your article written and it’s a gem and you know everyone will want to read it. Two things you now need to focus on – finding publishers and getting publishers to look at it.
The easiest place to start looking for publishers is in your own email program. Have you subscribed to any ezines? If so how many? If not – why not? If you haven’t
subscribed to a lot of them then you need to “go forth and subscribe” to as many as you can. The reason you want to do this is to build a database of ezines that are similar to your target market and at the same time become familiar with the ezines format.
You can also do a search on google or any of the other major search engines to look for ezines and article directories that your article would be appropriate for.
Here are a few article directories to get you started:
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.articlecity.com
http://www.article-emporium.com
Well how do you get your article accepted in ezines?
Guess what? As long as you’re in the writing mood, you’re going to have to write a short email to each publisher and ask them to publish it. Or you can invest in member only sites or software that will automate this process for you.
I’m including a sample email template for you to look at. My experience is that you modify the text and personalize any template to your own style and writing. Using a template as is from a resource like this soon becomes recognizeable and automatically deleted by most publishers who receive it. Use your imagination when you draft your own letter.
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Sample E-Mail Letter To A Publisher
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Dear Publisher,
My name is (your name) and I subscribe to your ( ezine). I’ve found it to be informative and helpful in my endeavors on the net.
I have written an article that may be of interest and helpful to your subscribers. If you find it suitable to your readers I would appreciate your considering publishing it in the (ezine).
Thank you very much for your consideration,
Sincerely,
(Your Name)
(Your Email Address)
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End Of Sample Letter
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This information should get you well on the road to writing articles for publishing in ezines that meet the criteria for your target market.
I highly recommend it as a way to get more visitors to your website without spending any money on advertising.
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