The Dos and Don'ts of Article Writing

The Dos and Don'ts of Article Writing

Over the past year or two, every SEO, Blogger, and Website Promoter
has heard about the wonders of article distribution and the positive
results that articles can yield for an otherwise unknown website.

The purpose of article marketing is three fold:

1.) Get your name out there as an expert
2.) Get traffic from links within your article
3.) Increase your search engine link popularity

In all three cases, the more highly distributed your article, the
higher the likelihood of your articles achieving each goal. In this
article I examine the dos and don'ts of article marketing and reveal a
few secrets that will land you more back links and higher traffic from
your article submissions.

WHAT TO EXPECT
If this is your first time submitting articles, you may be bubbling
over with anticipation. Calm down. Not to say that article marketing
is without benefit, but for those of you who think you've found the
Holy Grail of site visibility, you're in the wrong place.

Pertaining to the three goals mentioned above, here is what you can expect:

* Making an Expert of Yourself – Don't expect to be getting calls
from conference coordinators asking you to speak at their annual event
in Las Vegas. But hey, it looks good on a resume, right?
* Sending Traffic to Your Website –Sadly, the site traffic you
receive directly from articles is pretty small. You can maximize it by
tweaking the ways you submit, but don't buy a car with plans to pay it
off using article-generated AdSense revenue. For that matter, don't
buy a sandwich.
* Link Popularity and Search Engine Rankings – Article marketing's
saving grace. If you know how to optimize a page on your site as well
as the links in your articles, you will see improvement in ranking.

THE DOS OF ARTICLE MARKETING

* Write something unique… but not too unique. Most experts will
tell you that in order to achieve success in article marketing, you
must write on a topic that hasn't been covered. However, if that means
writing an article which is so specific that only 19 people in the
world will find it relevant, like "24 Ways to Pet a Brittany Spaniel,"
you won't have success either. SO…
* Put a new spin on an old subject. If you can't write something
"unique," put your spin on something old.
* Write something useful.
* Make it scannable. You want people to make it to the end of your
article and click on those precious signature links, right? Well then,
make sure they can get to the end of the thing. Use sub-headers. Use
bulleted lists. Use HTML. Increase the amount of traffic you're
getting by making your article scannable.
* Optimize your links. Whenever possible, optimize your links for
the search engines. This means either placing important keywords in
the anchor text of your signature links or placing them close to the
URL in situations where anchor text is not permitted.
* Deep link. I have found that links from articles usually don't
yield site authority with the search engines, but they do help search
engines define what term your page should be ranked for. A highly
optimized page with highly optimized links from articles pointing to
it can often find its way to the top, regardless of a site's
authority.
* Write conversationally. The Internet is like totally laid back,
man. Use it to your advantage and connect with your audience by
keeping things conversational.
* Proof read. And then do it again. And then have someone else do
it. And then one more time for good measure.
* Make it 600 – 900 words long.
* Use an automated form-filler. I use a program called Fireform.
It cuts my submission time to seconds instead of minutes. Google it.
* Submit a "How-To." And don't hold back. The more in-depth, the better.
* Submit a list. If there is one thing I've learned from VH1, it's
that people love lists.
* Write your article to adhere to the submission guidelines of as
many directories as possible. The less you have to go customize any
individual submission for a specific directory, the more directories
you'll submit to.

THE DON'TS OF ARTICLE MARKETING

* DON'T Use affiliate links. Most directories won't publish an
article laced with affiliate links and most content publishers won't
either. We've already established that articles don't drive traffic,
so by placing affiliate links in your article, you're really just
robbing yourself of search engine backlinks.
* DON'T Sell your company. Don't sell your products either. In
fact, try your best not to even mention who you work for in the body
of your article. Writing an article to sell a product diminishes the
credibility of that article as well as its chances of being
republished.
* DON'T Use an automated article submission service or program.
There are far too many variations between article directories to
effectively automate submissions. Your success rate will plummet if
you use a service like this.
* DON'T Use links in the article body. Many article directories
don't allow links in the body of the article, making them one more
piece to customize from directory to directory.
* DON'T Re-word someone else's article. First, it's plagiarism,
or, as they call it in the grown-up world, copyright infringement.
Second, articles like these are easy to pick out and will have lower
success rates.
* DON'T Get discouraged. You probably won't see search engine
improvements for a month, but they will come. Instead of checking the
SERPs every 10 minutes for signs of improvement, write and distribute
another article. Don't give up.

Remember, the idea is to manipulate the system in such a way that your
articles are published and republished as often as possible. By
following this simple guide, you'll be on your way to achieving that
goal.