All Entries in the "Author Resource Box" Category

What Should Your Resource Box Consist Of?

Your resource box is the small paragraph at the bottom of your articles that lead visitors back to your website. The point of article marketing, after all, is to drive traffic to your website by being a useful resource and providing useful information to your article readers. The author resource box is your chance to ask for something in return for the value you’ve given in the article.

So what you should go into your author resource box? It is essential that you get the following information in your resource box in as few words as possible:

• At least one reader benefit for clicking the link and visiting your website. It could be a free download, a discount on your service, or anything that tells the reader what he or she will get out of clicking your link.
• A link back to your website. At least one, but no more than three. Many article directories will not allow more than three links in your resource box. Some won’t allow more than two. I personally believe that one is often better. But it should lead to a landing page that will earn you some income.
• A call to action. Don’t just assume readers will click your link. Provide a call to action and a reason for clicking.

If you give a clear benefit and an incentive for clicking your link and ensure that you provide real value on the other side of it, article marketing can pay off for you. It all boils down to how effectively you use your resource box.

Article Marketing Secret: Who Is Your Target Market?

Many people question as to what topic they should choose to write their articles… Fortunately, the short answer is simple… Write articles that appeal to your target market. But what does that mean exactly?

I always pose this set of three questions, when I am talking to clients about what they should write about:

1. What do you sell?
2. Who is most likely to buy what you are selling?
3. How can you “answer a question” or “solve a problem” to help those people who are likely to buy what you are selling?

What Do You Sell?

Maybe you sell widgets, cell phones, car parts, or marketing services… It does not matter what you sell… There will always be a topic that you can write your articles about.

Do keep in mind that the point of article marketing is not to directly sell your products, but rather to educate, inform, or entertain your reading audience. So long as you stick to the idea of educating, informing, or entertaining your readers, you will never have a shortage of people who want to read the articles you write.

However, if you keep your focus on trying to overtly sell your products or services in your “article” copy, then it will be difficult to find publishers who WANT to publish what you have written.

This is important to note, in that publishers NEED content, but publishers tend to be very picky about the content that they want to share with their readers. In order for a publisher to become or remain profitable, he or she must always serve the desires of his or her readers. And readers do not want to be sold to, preached to, or criticized. Instead, readers want to improve their lot in this life and solve the problems that they face.

If you keep the needs of the publisher foremost in your mind, and the wants of the reader, then article marketing is a great tool that can help you to earn thousands of dollars.

If you lose focus of what publishers and readers want, then all you can hope for is a few links from your articles, from a few websites that very few people visit or read.

Who Is Most Likely To Buy What You Are Selling?

Just because you sell cars does not mean that anyone who has a drivers’ license is in your target market. Let us put this statement in perspective.

• If you sell $2000 cars, most of the people in your target market are the poor – including those in poverty and students.
• If you sell $10,000 cars, your market is mostly families in middle-class America. Occasionally, you will find the college kid coming to your store to buy a car for college, and sometimes you will see a bunch of tire kickers who can only pray to get financed.
• If you sell brand new cars, your target market will again differ by what kinds of vehicles you sell. A Cadillac-buyer is different from the SUV-buyer and the economy-car buyer.

There is not a car dealership anywhere in the world that tries to target its advertising to everybody with a pulse and a drivers’ license. It just does not happen. Either the dealership talks about its available cars and the benefits of owning a specific car, or the dealership points out that they can finance anyone.

Once you understand who is most likely to buy what you are selling, then figuring out what to write about has been made much easier.

Help Your Readers Solve A Problem

Before you start writing your article, you should try to get into the heads of the people most likely to buy what are selling. Those people as a general rule have common problems for which they seek solutions.

One way to get a handle on what those problems might be is to review the email correspondence and phone calls you have taken from your clients. If you read that email all at the same time, certain questions will be asked over and again. In fact, you might even have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website that you can reference at this point in the brainstorming session.

Your email and phone correspondence and the FAQ page on your website can lead you to a better understanding of the kinds of questions your customers are always needing to be answered for them.

Once you have achieved the understanding of what problems your customers seek to have solved for them, then you have to come to the magic formula for writing articles that find wide publication and a large readership.

In your article, present your readers with the questions that people have, and then present answers to the questions and show people how to solve their problems.

In doing so, publishers who have heard the same questions you have heard will be strongly inclined to publish your articles. And when publishers agree to publish your articles, you will be able to reach the publishers’ readers and a huge network of already targeted people who are very likely to buy what you are selling.

Understanding The Mechanics Of Article Marketing

When you write your articles, it is important to remember a few key points while writing the articles. Those key points are:

• The title serves to get your article opened, so it needs to be good.
• The body of the article answers questions and sells readers on your credibility in the marketplace.
• The article should be easy to read, and it should easily carry the reader to your About The Author information at the end of the article.
• Once at your Resource Box (About the Author information), the role of the Resource Box is not to sell your products or services, but to get the reader to visit your website, where the real selling will take place.

Using the formula that I have outlined here, you are sure to find success with your article marketing endeavors.

Sure, I know some people might be thinking that the only reason for article marketing is building links, so all this extra effort would be unnecessary. But let me tell you something that I learn from time-to-time…

Did you know that if you write an article that gets published in a large newsletter that you can in fact earn $10,000 plus in sales from that single article? This is a lesson that I have learned more times than I can count. And to be honest, it is a lesson I like to learn.

Consider this… You can spend a few dollars and very little time to create an article that will generate a few back links, hopefully helping you to rank in the search engines for your target keywords. Or, you can spend a few more dollars and a little more time and create an article that could generate back links for the search engines AND find a wider audience for your article in newsletters – newsletters that could potentially deliver thousands of visitors to your website and generate thousands of dollars in sales in the next couple weeks. Which strategy makes more sense to you?

If you are wondering if I practice what I preach, then read this article again and then see my resource box below. I provide article distribution services to my customers, and my customers frequently ask me what they should write about in their articles and how to best construct those articles to reach a wider audience, and more specifically, their target audience. If I have answered these questions to your satisfaction, then visit my website and let me help you to promote your articles too.

About The Author

Bill Platt has been writing about article marketing and SEO for a number of years. If you have written an article that you feel is good enough to get publication in a major newsletter or website, then you owe it to yourself to use Bill’s article distribution service at http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ If you are interested in learning about coop article marketing, then visit Bill’s newest website: http://www.sponsorarticles.com/

Use Articles To Think Outside The Resource Box

To be effective at article marketing you’ve got to think outside the box – the resource box, that is.

Too many article marketers spend all their time thinking about getting the visitor to their website, and it shows in their articles. The article tends to be one long advertisement for the author’s services. But before put that resource box on, really put some thought into your articles. That’s where you earn the reader’s trust.

Until you’ve earned that coveted trust there is no sense in asking for a reader to visit your website. You must first establish yourself as an authority in your field. It is likely that you won’t do that with one article. But you certainly won’t do it with one article that reads like a sales message. Take the time to give. Your knowledge. Away.

By focusing on giving instead of getting you prove to article readers that you are someone who cares about their needs. They will trust you more and be willing to listen to what you have to say. Eventually, you might get their business. But trust, and authority, begins outside the resource box. Just like in baseball, batters are made outside the box. In article marketing, authority is established outside the box. The resource box.

TwitWall: One More Article Marketing Tool You Should Try

I recently discovered a new article marketing tool. It’s called TwitWall and if you are a Twitter user, and if not you should be, then you automatically have a TwittWall that you can post to.

TwitWall is essentially a blog for Twitter. Since Twitter limits your tweets to 140 characters, an enterprising entrepreneur created TwitWall to allow Twitterers a way to write more than 140 characters if they need to. TwitWall allows you to post thoughts that cannot be condensed to 140 characters and sends an automatic tweet to promote the posts each time you make one. Here’s how you can use it for article marketing:

• Write an article
• Perform your normal article marketing routine and distribute your article
• Post your article to your TwitWall

It’s really that easy. Be sure to include your author bio or a link to your website at the end of your articles on TwitWall. You can see a sample article on my TwitWall here.

Which Pages Should Your Promote With Articles?

Article marketing isn’t hard, but for the new Internet entrepreneur it can be confusing. What exactly should you promote with your articles?

Well, let’s start with the basics. You know about keywords, right? Your keywords are your stepping stones. Essentially, they are the brick and mortar of your Internet business. You build your website around them. You write your blog around them. You run your PPC campaigns around them. And, yes, you should write your articles around them.

The best way to conduct your article marketing campaign is to match your article keywords with your landing page keywords. So, for instance, if you run a health store and you have a landing page that promotes a multivitamin – let’s call it “The Ultimate Multivitamin” – and your primary keyword for this landing page is, you guessed it, “multivitamin”, then your article should be optimized around a keyword that is complimentary for the primary keyword on your landing page. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is optimized for the exact keyword, but it should be close enough that there is a complimentary element there.

Your author resource box is actually where you’re going to make your article marketing money. Your primary keyword, “multivitamin”, should be used as anchor text in your resource box. And that should link to your landing page.

This is the very basic idea behind article marketing. It works for those who have tried it. And it can work for you too. Find out more about article marketing from an article marketing consultant.

Can You Do Article Marketing Through Blogs?

Can you do article marketing through blogs? Yes. Here’s a good article that shows you how:

A Unique Twist on Article Marketing That Gives Your Site Massive Exposure!

By Sherice Jacob

Everyone interested in organic search engine optimization knows that article marketing is a great (and free) way to build exposure and get traffic to your site. But that’s not the only thing you can do to bring bucket-loads of traffic to your site. Another often-overlooked source of highly targeted visitors and potential buyers is this.

Writing “guest articles” on a related blog in your industry. It’s as simple as contacting the owner with a basic proposal. You agree to write one (or more) blog posts for them in exchange for the typical by-line at the bottom – and they get to take the day off from writing in their blog. It’s a win-win situation for both parties – and it’s free!

To get the most benefit out of being a guest author, you’ll want to be prepared beforehand. Here’s what you do:

1. Brainstorm possible articles you could write for the blog you’re interested in. It always helps to have a number of possible post or article ideas fleshed out as much as possible before you contact the site owner.

Who knows, perhaps one or two postings will lead to a spot as a regular contributor?

2. Craft your resource box carefully. This is the 3-5 line bio that appears at the end of your post. You want to drum up interest in your products with your bio, as well as showcase your expertise in the field. Not to mention sprinkling a few keyword phrases in for good measure.

So for example, let’s say Jane is a guest author for a blog about dog grooming, and she wants to promote her own dog grooming business in the bio box. Rather than writing something like: Jane Doe works as a professional dog groomer at Groomers R Us. Visit her site at example.com for more dog grooming tips.

As you can see, there’s no real incentive there to click. Instead, consider writing a more interest-generating resource box, such as:

Dog grooming professional Jane Doe runs example.com – selling top-quality dog grooming supplies and products to pamper your pet and keep them looking great! Visit our website for 10% off your order!

As you can see, a few generous helpings of targeted keyphrases along with a coupon code will help Jane create a lot of interest (and orders) for her site!

3. Have some samples ready. If the blog owner is interested in your site, chances are, they’ll ask you to provide some samples of your writing.

Even if you’ve never guest authored a blog before, have some sample articles ready to show them your experience and writing skills. It will go a long way in proving your credibility, showcasing your writing skills and maximizing your ability to communicate to an audience.

In the end, even if the blog owner says “no thanks”, there are literally millions of blogs for you to consider. To find them, simply search Google for “yourkeyword blog” – and replace “yourkeyword” with your type of industry, such as “dog grooming blog”.

Here’s to your success as a newly published guest author!

P.S. If you enjoyed reading this article, you can find even more web design tips at http://www.iElectrify.com

Sherice Jacob holds an M.A. in Media Studies and has played an integral role in creating several successful web businesses – for herself and others. She currently manages a full service web design and internet marketing firm at http://www.iElectrify.com

iElectrify specializes in creating professional, affordable and creative websites that get results. With a strong background in internet marketing and niche marketing, iElectrify.com works with small to medium businesses to help them easily create and manage their own websites.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sherice_Jacob

I totally agree with this article, but I have one thing to add. Make sure that you write original content for your guest blog article. The blogger is letting you use her real estate to reach her audience. Don’t be discourteous and submit rehashed articles that have been published elsewhere. Write original content that can’t found elsewhere.

If you’d like to guest blog on Article Content Provider’s article marketing blog, contact us through our website.

Can You Write Articles For Holiday Promotions?

You might think that holidays do not lend themselves well to article marketing because the former is temporary and the latter is a permanent tool. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, holidays are temporary and article marketing is a permanent promotional tool. When you write an article and submit it to an article directory it is there for good – unless you remove it (but why would you do that?). Still, you can use the holidays to promote your business if you do it the right way.

You don’t want to lose sight of the real goal, which is to deliver targeted traffic to your website. And you want that traffic to land on specific pages that are going to help them year-round. Therefore, don’t send traffic to holiday landing pages. Instead, write about Christmas gift ideas or holiday-specific themes but in your author resource box include links to pages that remain in the search engine indexes and that visitors can access all year. The reason you want to do it this way is because you’ll still get traffic from those articles throughout the year even though they may carry a specific holiday theme, though you’ll likely get more traffic during that holiday.

How Many Websites Can One Article Promote?

Can you promote more than one website with each article you write? You can, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Your articles need to be focused. You are allowed up to three links in the author resource box of your articles at most directories. Some directories only allow two links, but that’s OK. You only need to promote one website. If you promote more than one website with any one article then you will likely get fewer click throughs.

When I create an author resource box I include two links to the same web page in two different ways:

Allen Taylor is a blog ghostwriter. Check out his site at http://blogcontentprovider.com

By using both the URL as a hyperlink and a key phrase that I want to target I ensure that my website is known when a publisher uses my article on his or her website or in her e-zine. Some publishers do not activate the links. If they do then I get relevant anchor text in a back link. If they don’t then my URL is still visible to readers of the article. Not as effective, but at least the reader knows who wrote the article and how to find me.

The only exception to the one website rule is when I want to promote my website and my related blog. Sometimes, for marketing purposes, it is prudent to put your blog on a separate domain name. In that case I’ll promote both the blog and the website, but that is a special situation. Otherwise, it’s one website, Baby.

Use Your Author Resource Box To Build Links

It seems that everyone and their pet rattlesnake has an article directory now. Here’s a new take on the article directory: AdSense share. I’m just not sure about it.

Nevertheless, this article writer understands how to put together a good author resource box.

Optimizing Your Author’s Resource Box

By Kerry Thomas

Article marketing is a very effective way to promote your web site and services. One simple article can ultimately end up on hundreds or even thousands of other sites. The links back to your site from these articles is what drives your web traffic. You can get direct referrals as well as organic search results via an effective article marketing strategy.

A very important tip for article marketing is to always optimize your author’s resource area. The author’s resource box is usually the area where you are allowed to place links that point back to your site. I’ll demonstrate an optimized resource box below.

Your Name loves to write and (submit articles) to http.//www.examplesite.com/ (actual link would have a ” : ” after the http instead of a ” . “)

My example is a very short bio, but in this case it shows how I have made the article resource links work for me. In this example (submit articles) would represent the anchor text of my link. I would hyperlink the text “submit articles” and have it pointing to the example site. In this context, submit articles would be a keyword that might help drive traffic to the site. I have basically told the search engines that the text “submit articles” is relevant to the site and I want to place a little more emphasis on it. Here’s the key…the text you choose to hyperlink should be keyword related and you should always take advantage of the ability to hyperlink keywords in your author’s bio area.

I have also allowed for the http: version of the URL. Most article sites will automatically hyperlink the http: format of the URL. If by chance the article ends up on a plain text article site, then the link will not be hyperlinked, but the user can still find your article by simply copying and pasting the URL to the browser’s address bar. While the the plain text version will not help your search engine rankings, it can and will allow for direct referrals to your bio information. As you can see I have allowed for both plain text and html rendering of my bio information.

Apply these same principles to all your article bios and you will be effectively working towards driving both organic search results and direct referrals to your work. As you can see, choosing the right link text, and properly hyperlinking it, can add a considerable boost to your search engine rankings. Please remember that most sites will only allow for a couple of links in the bio area so don’t over do it. The http: version will count as a link itself in most cases. Choose your keywords carefully and get them properly optimized to maximize your traffic.

Kerry Thomas is an article writer and owns an Article Directory offering AdSense® revenue sharing here: http://www.myarticle-writer.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kerry_Thomas

Not only does an article resource box build solid links, but it also can drive traffic to your website from highly trafficked sites within your niche. Here’s another article directory you can submit your articles to.

Learn how you can have your articles submitted to 40,000 directories and websites for less than $5.

Where Should You Send
Article Marketing Traffic?

Article marketing is about building links, traffic, and reputation. If you do those three things well then you’ve got it down pretty good. But what pages on your website should you focus on for links and traffic?

One rule of thumb I like to keep in mind is to send people to the nearest page to where they will actually make a purchase. In other words, get them straight to your landing page with a “Buy Now” button if you can. That takes care of three things:

• It kills buyer frustration before it begins. No one wants to look for the “Buy Now” button. If you send traffic right to where you want it to go without anything in the middle then you are more likely to close sales.
• You build links to your most important pages and that increases their PageRank. Build those inbound links to your most valuable pages because that will make them rise higher in the search engine rankings and you’ll end up getting more organic traffic.
• Builds your credibility. When you make it easier for your customers to buy from you then they will trust you more. They will know that you know how to market your product and will be more likely to trust you and make a purchase.

Article marketing is pretty simple. Build links, trust and credibility, and traffic with carefully places anchor text links in your resource box.