Writing and publishing articles online is a proven way to drive traffic to your websites. It's targeted traffic, because the people who followed the links back to your site typed in the keywords about your topic.
Internet article marketing is wildly successful for some Internet Marketers — but for others, not so much! In this article I'm giving you the three most important factors that decide whether your articles will be found and lead people back to your site — or not!
1. Keywords
Always begin by selecting the best keyword phrases for your purpose. I used to sometimes forget about this, and my traffic was lower as a result. I don't make that mistake any more, and neither should you.
Only if you have the right keywords in your title and in the article itself will people find your article in the first place. And the right keywords are the words people are actually typing in when they are looking for information on the topic. That's why it's so important to do your keyword research.
People will try to sell you all kinds of expensive keyword finding tools, and my advice is to forget those. The free keyword tool from Google works just find. Go to Google and type in the phrase "Google keyword tool" and click on the first link on the results page. Enter your top level keyword (e.g. scrapbooking) and see what comes up. You'll find a long list of keywords that are actually searched on, as well as the number of times they are searched on.
Write one article for each keyword phrase. That tells the search engines exactly what the article is about and they are more likely to find and list it on the search results pages. If you find ten great keyword phrases, write ten articles.
2. Effective Resource Boxes
The resource box is that little paragraph at the end of your article that leads readers back to your site. When writing them, remember that it's not about you — it's about what interests your reader.
If your qualifications matter to the reader (e.g. if you write about health issues and you are a doctor or a nurse) then mention them. But it's usually more effective to give readers a link to "more information about scrapbooking". Remember, we're all interested in "what's in it for me" and your readers are no exception.
3. Publish Widely and Often
Definitely publish on the top two article directories, EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. But there are lots of other good directories, as well as blogs and forums on your niche that can also help get you traffic. But it can take some time to research them all and find the good ones. You need a system to publish your articles without devoting your entire life to the process!
Two methods to stay away from:
- Automatic article submission software. I tried these and they were either inefficient or just a scam. What a disaster! - Article spinning software. These are supposed to replace a certain number of words in your article so that it will look like a different article. What they really do is take the article you spent your time and energy writing and turn it into gibberish. An even bigger disaster!
There's a better way. Save time and effort and still get good results by using a trusted article submission service. You write your article and submit it once, and the service then distributes it widely across the Internet. Yes, you have to pay, but the small investment can bring you big returns in traffic to your website.
Internet article marketing is wildly successful for some Internet Marketers — but for others, not so much! In this article I'm giving you the three most important factors that decide whether your articles will be found and lead people back to your site — or not!
1. Keywords
Always begin by selecting the best keyword phrases for your purpose. I used to sometimes forget about this, and my traffic was lower as a result. I don't make that mistake any more, and neither should you.
Only if you have the right keywords in your title and in the article itself will people find your article in the first place. And the right keywords are the words people are actually typing in when they are looking for information on the topic. That's why it's so important to do your keyword research.
People will try to sell you all kinds of expensive keyword finding tools, and my advice is to forget those. The free keyword tool from Google works just find. Go to Google and type in the phrase "Google keyword tool" and click on the first link on the results page. Enter your top level keyword (e.g. scrapbooking) and see what comes up. You'll find a long list of keywords that are actually searched on, as well as the number of times they are searched on.
Write one article for each keyword phrase. That tells the search engines exactly what the article is about and they are more likely to find and list it on the search results pages. If you find ten great keyword phrases, write ten articles.
2. Effective Resource Boxes
The resource box is that little paragraph at the end of your article that leads readers back to your site. When writing them, remember that it's not about you — it's about what interests your reader.
If your qualifications matter to the reader (e.g. if you write about health issues and you are a doctor or a nurse) then mention them. But it's usually more effective to give readers a link to "more information about scrapbooking". Remember, we're all interested in "what's in it for me" and your readers are no exception.
3. Publish Widely and Often
Definitely publish on the top two article directories, EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. But there are lots of other good directories, as well as blogs and forums on your niche that can also help get you traffic. But it can take some time to research them all and find the good ones. You need a system to publish your articles without devoting your entire life to the process!
Two methods to stay away from:
- Automatic article submission software. I tried these and they were either inefficient or just a scam. What a disaster! - Article spinning software. These are supposed to replace a certain number of words in your article so that it will look like a different article. What they really do is take the article you spent your time and energy writing and turn it into gibberish. An even bigger disaster!
There's a better way. Save time and effort and still get good results by using a trusted article submission service. You write your article and submit it once, and the service then distributes it widely across the Internet. Yes, you have to pay, but the small investment can bring you big returns in traffic to your website.