By
allen on July 12th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, Article Writing, author resource box | No Comments »
You’ve got some great articles, but you find yourself writing your resource box every time you want to submit one to an article directory. It’s really getting old. So why do it?
You really only need to write your resource box once. In fact, why not write three author resource boxes, with slightly different information in each one and with different links? Then each time you write an article that you want to submit to an article directory, you simply choose with author resource box to use. Save your resources boxes in a text file on your hard drive and whenever you’re ready to submit your articles to an article directory you just copy/paste the one you want to use onto the bottom of your article. Simple.
Here’s what you should include in your resource boxes:
- Your name
- Name of your company
- One sentence that sums up the service you want to promote
- A link to your landing page
- (Optional) A second link
- A closing sentence that serves as a call to action (this should have a link in it; preferably your one link or the alternate, and this sentence can be the same sentence as the summary mentioned above)
You really want to use that author resource box to drive traffic to your landing pages. But don’t promote more than one landing page per article. Focus on one landing page per article and use your articles to drive traffic to that landing page.
By
allen on June 30th, 2008
Posted in author resource box | No Comments »
By Hendry Lee
Article resource box is a vital part of every article. The same article could get none to hundreds or thousands of visitors just because of a resource box. You can’t just write a few lines without a strategy and expect it to work. It doesn’t work that way.
Here are 5 ways you can go wrong with your article resource box:
1. Blatant self-promotion
Although you’re allowed to promote yourself in the resource box doesn’t mean that you should do so. The readers never care about you but how could you help them. Think of ways on how you can move the credibility you’ve built so far to the next level. Give them even more information or value.
2. Award showcase
The resource box is not the place for show all your accomplishments. You may use one or two that is very relevant to boost your credibility, but much of the credibility is earned by demonstrating your expertise within the article body. If you give them valuable information, they will know it.
3. No call to action
People may think they’re smart enough to take action without being told about what to do. The fact is exactly the opposite though. People are confused about what to do next unless you tell them what to do, although they may not admit it.
If you want them to visit your site to get more information or subscribe to your e-newsletter, say it. Give a reason why they should do it, perhaps give them a special report for download when they subscribe.
4. No links
Giving the readers at least a link to click and a strong reason for them to do so is the key to getting traffic from your articles.
Don’t waste the virtual real estate. You want to include at least one link to your web site.
5. No keyword targeted anchor text
Don’t include just a link. Use keyword focused anchor text (the text used as a live link) because search engines think the page that is linked using the anchor text must be relevant for that keyword.
You may want to diversify the anchor text links to make it appear as natural links, but still such links are important. The best way is to use anchor text but still keep the full live URL in the resource box so web site owners who decide to copy and paste your articles still have the link of your site in the resource box.
Do you want to learn the secrets about article marketing? I drive 5,238 unique visitors to my site each month, and I’ll teach you how to do it.
Download your free article marketing strategy guide plus 2 free article templates and other goodies in the “Net Marketing Start-Up Kit” from http://successloop.com/templates.html
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Hendry_Lee
Hendry Lee makes some good points. No. 3, 4, and 5 are the most important of these. Get that anchor text link to speak with a call to action and your article marketing efforts will really shine!
By
allen on June 5th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, author resource box | No Comments »
Article marketing is a powerful way to market your products or services. But even if you don’t have a website you can make money through article marketing. There are countless ways to make it work for you. Here are three ways that you can make money through article marketing:
- Sell a digital product - All you really have to do to make money through article marketing is offer something for sale. An e-book, a podcast, a video, computer software, anything that people can download online. Write articles and distribute them to article directories and drive traffic to your product’s sales page. If your sales page converts, article marketing can get the traffic to your page and you’ll be earning income as a result. Be patient and write a lot of articles.
- Affiliate marketing - Even if you don’t have a product of your own to sell, you can make money selling someone else’s product. It’s called affiliate marketing. Find a product that you think you can promote and write articles about that topic. Don’t write articles that promote the product directly. Write helpful informational products about the niche or subject specialty and in your author resource box have a link that points to a landing page. Make your landing page about your affiliate product and drive traffic to your affiliate’s sales page. Any sales you make will earn you a commission.
- Sell advertising - Write articles on a particular topic and put them on a website. All of your articles should be related to a particular niche. Use articles to drive traffic to this website and sell advertising to companies in this niche. These companies will pay you for putting an ad on your website if you can show them that you have traffic to your web pages.
There is more than just one way to make money online. Think about your business plan and find a way to include article marketing in the plan. It pays to have a plan and follow through.
Learn More About Article Marketing Today
By
allen on June 4th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, author resource box | No Comments »
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.
By
allen on May 28th, 2008
Posted in Article Marketing, author resource box | 1 Comment »
An article I read recently told the story of an Internet marketer who stopped sending readers of his articles to his opt-in page. Instead, he now sends them to his index page or another page on his website so they can learn more about his niche and read more great content on his website. Was that a good move?
According to him, it improved the quality of his opt-in list. I can imagine that it did. But he also made another change. He stopped offering a free e-book to e-zine subscribers.
If you offer a freebie then you do run the risk of having people sign up for your newsletter or e-zine just for the freebie and not the e-zine itself. If you really want them to become subscribers and to read your e-zine then you might not want to offer a freebie. But what about that opt-in page? Should you send readers of your articles there?
It depends. Many Internet marketers swear by it. But most of them using that strategy are harping products. They offer a free download along with an e-zine subscription then spend the rest of the marketing efforts trying to sell more stuff. Their marketing model is based on numbers. Get lots and lots of subscribers then pummel them with come-ons. It works for them. But it might not work for you.
If you are looking for high quality subscribers who will read your e-mails and interact with you on your blog and website then you might want to try a different strategy. Put an opt-in box on every page of your website and send your article traffic to your site to read your great content. If they like the content on your website then they’ll subscribe to your e-zine.
Learn more about article marketing at ACP.
By
allen on May 7th, 2008
Posted in Article Directories, Article Marketing, Article Writing, author resource box | No Comments »
On Blog Content Provider earlier today we posted about the purpose of blog marketing. Every now and then we like to revisit this issue because there are still business owners online who think article marketing is about selling and that’ s not really what it’s all about.
Article marketing is about pre-selling.
What I mean by that is this: When you write and distribute articles to article directories online, don’t simply send out a marketing message about your company. People online are looking for useful information. So give it to them. Tell them something interesting that they didn’t know before. Then, at the end, in your author bio box, tell them why they should visit your website and give them the link. Let your website do the selling.
In a word, article marketing’s purpose is to drive traffic to your website. But that’s not the only thing it does either. You can also use article marketing to build inbound links. But those links are not from the article directories.
The big picture is that people in your industry who publish newsletters and website will use your articles if they like them. When they do, they will give you back links to your website and you’ll get visitors from their websites and newsletters. If you look at it from that perspective, article marketing serves a much bigger purpose than what most small business owners imagine.
Learn more about article marketing
and driving traffic to your website.
By
allen on March 27th, 2008
Posted in Article Writing, Reputation Management, author resource box | 1 Comment »
Article marketing is about two things:
- Building Links
- Driving Traffic
In both cases, the best tool for accomplishing the task is your author resource box. That’s the area at the bottom of your articles where you get to talk about yourself. It’s best not to write a book. If your author resource box is as long as your article then it’s too long. It just needs to be a couple of sentences. But what should go in it?
Obviously, you need your name. Also, a one sentence explanation of what you do. Follow that up with a call to action. In those two sentences, you should have two links. One of those links should be an URL - spell out your URL. The reason you want to spell out your URL is because your anchor text, which I am about to tell you about, may not be activated by some publishers. If a publisher doesn’t activate your URL then readers of your article will still be able to see your domain name and copy/paste it into their browser windows.
The second link in your author resource box should be your anchor text link. Whatever your important keyword is - the keyword around which you optimized your article - include it again in your author resource box and link it to the page on your website most appropriate for that anchor text. Hint: It should be the URL you spelled out in the other link.
If you do it this way then you are promoting one landing page for each article, but you are also using an important keyword phrase for that landing page to build inbound links to your website. Every time a publisher publishes your article, you’ll get a new inbound link. The most of those, the better. Even more importantly, the more high quality and relevant inbound links you build through article marketing then the better off your rankings will be. Anchor text helps you build your reputation online.
Learn More About Article Marketing From
The Article Marketing Experts
By
allen on March 20th, 2008
Posted in author resource box | 1 Comment »
When it comes to article marketing, the most important part of your article (for you) is the author resource box. This is where you will put your author bio and links back to your website. But how many links is enough? How many is too many?
Most article directories will allow you up to three links in your author resource box. But that doesn’t mean you should include three links in every resource box. You should include as many links as is necessary to promote the specific product or service you are marketing. In many cases, that could mean just one link.
Whether you use 1, 2, or 3 links, you should always include one instance of your URL hyperlinked. The reason you want your URL spelled out is because some publishers fail to hyperlink your anchor text or use bots to pick up articles and the bots do not activate the anchor text links. In that case, you at least have your URL spelled out so readers of your article can just copy/paste your URL into their browser and visit your web page.
My best recommendation is to promote only one web page in your author resource box. You can do that by using an instance of anchor text hyperlinked to that page and your second link should be the URL of that page linked with an a href tag. If that specific page’s URL is real long then only spell out the main body of your URL (www.websitename.com) and link it to the specific landing page that you want your site visitors to go to. Your author resource box can drive traffic to your website fast if you don’t overload it with useless URLs and links. Don’t try to promote everything you do in one resource box. That will water your marketing down.
By
allen on February 19th, 2008
Posted in author resource box | No Comments »
Do you know what information you should include in your article resource box? It’s OK if you don’t. Many new article marketers have no idea. Here is a list of items that you absolutely must include in your article resource box in order to have an effective article marketing campaign:
- Your name - It’s amazing how many people leave out their name. No one wants to read an article by a company. They want to read an article by an individual with a name. Be sure to include your name in your article resource box.
- Your title - If you are a CEO or a Senior Marketing VP then let your readers know. A title can add credibility like nothing else.
- Your company name - Yes, you can name your company. But name just your company. People do want to know your affiliations, however, and the most important of these is your company.
- A link to your website or landing page - You don’t want more than a couple of links. One is better in many cases. But you are trying to send traffic to your website through article marketing, so include a link or two. Your link should be to the page that is most appropriate for the information in your article. If you wrote an article on the health benefits of seafood, for instance, don’t send traffic to your vegetarian food substances web page. Send the traffic to your halibut recipes web page instead.
- A call to action - Be sure you invite your readers to visit your website. Statements like, “Visit the All About Halibut Recipe Page” or “Ready Why Vegetables Are Your Salvation” are good calls to action.
Remember that you are trying to get visitors to your website with your article resource box. Don’t bore them. Be concise and let readers know what you have to offer.
