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Written by: Eric Brantner on July 20, 2009 – 7:29 am

Article marketing is one of the oldest tools in the internet marketing toolbox. When done properly, it’s a highly effective way to build links to your website, to increase your online authority, to control the search rankings for top keywords, and to spread your online presence. Notice I said “when done properly.” See, a lot of people believe article marketing is just about churning out as much content as possible and submitting it to the popular article directories. But it takes more than that to run an effective article marketing campaign.

Below, you’ll find tips that will help you get the most out of your article marketing. I’m not going to discuss the basics of choosing the right keywords and creating keyword-rich links as I’m assuming you already know how and why to do this.

 

1. Create a click-worthy headline—I’ve noticed that many article marketers get so caught up in making sure to include keywords in their titles that they lose focus of whether the headline is compelling or not. See, when your article comes up in the search engines or gets Tweeted out, the main factor that determines whether or not someone will read it is the headline. Your headline needs to capture their interest and demand they read your article.
2. Focus on providing information, not selling yourself—Sure, one of the ultimate goals of article marketing is to drive traffic to your site so that you can ideally increase your leads or sales, but that doesn’t mean the articles you write should be nothing more than a thinly-veiled sales pitch. Remember, readers are interested in “what’s in it for me?” That’s why your articles need to provide information they can benefit from. Of course, make sure the information you provide in your articles is accurate and timely. After all, it is your brand’s reputation that’s at stake here, so you’d better know what you’re talking about.
3. Combine quality and quantity—We’ve all come across these article marketing services that promise to deliver thousands of articles to you for pennies on the dollar. These services operate under the assumption that quantity is all that matters when it comes to article writing…quality be damned. The way they deliver these articles so cheaply is by outsourcing them to “writers” in other countries. Unfortunately, these “writers” often have a very poor command of the English language. So, while the articles might end up grabbing you high search engine rankings, the content within the article is unreadable and only serves to hurt your credibility. Quality content should always be your first concern, and over time, by consistently writing articles, quantity will follow, giving you the best of both worlds.
4. Promote your articles—Writing and submitting your article is only half of the battle; you also need to spend some time promoting the articles you write. You can do this by sending out Tweets with links to your articles, occasionally linking out to your articles from your blog, and promoting your articles in your monthly newsletter.
5. Collect best articles for an eBook—If you’ve read my recent posts, you know that writing an eBook is an effective way to increase your authority in your niche. But writing an eBook can be time-consuming. Instead, why not create an eBook that contains your best articles? You can offer the eBook as a freebie on your website, collecting email addresses from those who download it (this builds up your email list for future marketing).

 

Do you still engage in article marketing? What tips would you add to this list?

5 Article Marketing Tips You Need to Know, 7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings

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• 5 Article Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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