Is Article Marketing A Waste Of Time?
Every now and then I run across someone who says, “I tried article marketing and it didn’t make me any sales. It’s just a waste of time.”
But is it?
Like anything else, if you don’t do it right, article marketing can be a waste of time. You spend time writing an article. You spend time distributing the article. Few people respond. You make no sales. It’s a waste of time, right?
Seemingly. But if you do ti right, article marketing can be a big boon to your business. So that begs the question, “What is the right way to do article marketing?”
Well, there is no one right way. There are a lot of ways that work and a lot of ways that don’t. But there are principles that you can adhere to that will make your article marketing more effective in the long run. Here are some principles that I’ve found work best:
- Write a lot of articles - Don’t just write one article and stop there. One article here and there isn’t going to do you any good. To make article marketing work for you it is important that you spend some time each week on some aspect of your article marketing plan. First, write at least two articles per week. One article per day is better if you can.
- Don’t make every article about yourself - Self-promotional articles don’t work. People don’t care about your achievements. They want to know what’s in it for them. Write articles that are heavy on information and provide value for the reader.
- Link to your website in the author resource box - This is very important. I can’t tell you how many people write articles and post them in article directories without links in the author resource box. If you don’t link back to your website then no one is going to visit your website. Article marketing will be a waste of time.
- Spell your URL out once - Not everyone who republishes articles will activate your links. They’re supposed to, but some people don’t. Spell out the URL you want to promote so that people can always see your website address even if the link isn’t activated.
- Include a call to action - Give a compelling reason for people to visit your website. Offer a free download or a huge discount. Make your offer compelling enough that people won’t be able to refuse, then ask for the action (click, subscription, etc.).
Article marketing isn’t hard. It can be time consuming. But if you do it right it’s not a waste of time. It can drive traffic to your website and help you close sales.
