Article Marketing

A revolutionary marketing device that I call article marketing I now will share with you. Now the sole question is can article marketing me? That depends on if you are looking to build pr, increase your inbound links, and boost your traffic. If you answered yes to any of the above questions then continue to read, and learn the tricks of the trade.

Before you begin to write your first article, you should ask yourself why I would use articles to market my website, in opposition to other methods. Well first of all it's free, and what is more desirable than a new fresh free way to promote your website for free. Article marketing will also help build your inbound links and bring in a good amount of traffic, when written and distributed correctly.

Well then how can you write them effectively? Though this depends on your target audience and your personal writing style. You may prefer to write them to be factual yet boring as hell, or you could try making it interesting with a deficiency of information. The key I found after testing is to use a bit of both. Don't make it sound to boring, and doing rant about irrelevant topics that your audience finds interesting.

Before picking your article topic, expose your target audience. In this case my target audience is webmasters, which are typically teenagers like me. If you're having trouble determining your target audience you could take a survey on your website that gives you some information about your visitors.

Picking your article topic is crucial to how responsive your readers are to your website. For example if I wrote an article about fishing my response may be around 5% of readers in comparison to if I wrote about website marketing or development my response may be much closer to 50%. If you are wondering what I mean when I say your readers response, I mean how many of your readers decide to click on your link in the author box of your article.

So pick a topic you like and that will benefit your readers in some way, then start writing. But before you do map out your article, you should list what you plan to discuss and/or answer within your article. This will help you to avoid straying from topic and include all parts. Note: write only about something you know, or plan to research thoroughly. If you own a website pertaining to this topic it shouldn't be too difficult. Anyways, keep your paragraphs somewhat short, so your readers aren't overwhelmed by all the text. I personally live with ADD and find it difficult to read long paragraphs, distractions suddenly seem more interesting.

Your article's title is vital to the distribution of your article. Who would want to read something that sounds like its going to be boring or lacking facts? So to avoid this, use some fresh and flashy words in your title like: end-all be-all, free, secrets, reference. The list goes on but it's your job to be original and think of your own. Though I should tell you now that the key to a good title is writing it after you finished writing your article.

Now onto the final piece of your article and the most important, your author box, aka your bio. Your bio should include only a few elements: Your name, a small description of you, and a link to your website (typically main page). I suggest you speak in third person, that way when the article is reprinted on another website the text flows better. Also try to make your bio sound as intriguing as possible.

Now that you have completed all the necessary elements of your article its time to distribute it. There would be no point in writing it if know one read it or distributed it. There are many places you can go to submit your articles for reprints, finding them is the difficult part. So I being the great person I am, compiled all these resources into one list that can be found at: http://www.webmastershed.com/articles/resources/

Submit to all the resources in the link above and your inbound links will increase while also helping you build PageRank and traffic. Remember, articles take time to write and distribute, but they ultimately prove to be one of the most effective marketing tools out there that haven't been oversaturated.

Written by: Michael McLaughlin at http://www.webmastershed.com/ - webmaster forum, for more articles by this author please visit: http://www.webmastershed.com/articles/