All Entries Tagged With: "links"
The Purpose of Article Marketing
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.
and driving traffic to your website.
Do You Make These Article Marketing Mistakes?
There are effective and ineffective ways to conduct article marketing. Many new article marketers make the same mistake over and over again. If you are considering article marketing you should at least think about these avoidable mistakes and try to steer clear of them before you start:
- Write articles that are too long – A good article must be short enough that publishers will want to share it with their readers. How short is that? Probably no more than 800 words. Ideally, your articles should be 400-700 words and no more.
- Write articles that are too short - Many article directories will not take your articles if they are less then 300 words or 250 words. Your articles need to be at least 300 words in length.
- Write titles that do not draw attention - Your article title will be the first thing that readers will see in many cases. You’ve got to get their attention in the article title. Otherwise, the article may never get read.
- Put too many links in their author bio – The purpose for your author resource box is to get readers to click a link and visit your website. The resource box needs to be focused to drive traffic to one page. Too many links can discourage the click through and this kills many would-be article marketers right off the bat.
- Do not write enough articles – Many article marketers do not produce enough articles. They’ll write 10 articles and distribute those 10 to one directory then wait. Or they’ll write one per month and hope for a big cash pay load. To be successful in article marketing you’ve got to produce at least one article per day. Many article marketers write several articles in one day.
- Do not properly optimize their articles – Your articles need to be properly optimized. Publishers seek well-optimized content for their newsletters and websites. If you don’t write well-optimized articles then they will not be published.
Are you making these mistakes in article marketing? If so, perhaps you should think about your goals and start writing articles that will be more effective in your marketing plan.
Author Resource Box Links:
How Many Is Enough?
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.
Should Articles Have Links In Them?
One question that often comes up is, “Should I put links in my articles.” Well, you can. But there are some reasons why you shouldn’t. Some article directories have very strict policies that prohibit certain kinds of links within articles. But every article directory is different. They all have their own policies.
I have found that the article directories with the strictest policies regarding links within articles are the best ones. They concern is with quality. Many article directories will accept anything, so the quality of articles you’ll find in them are not that good. You’ll find a lot of spam or blatant advertising messages and those articles tend to have the lowest distribution. But not all links within articles are bad.
The most important consideration for any article you publish in article directories is quality. Will your potential readers benefit from the article? That should be your first priority in every article that you write. With that in mind, you should carefully consider whether to include links within your articles and what types of links to include if you do.
I’d say stay away from self-serving links. Any article directory that would allow you to include self-serving links within your articles is probably not a very good article directory. There may be exceptions, but that has been my experience. That’s not to say all links within articles are bad.
Self-serving links are better left for your author resource box. If you do include links within articles, you’d be better off including links to third-party sources, sources that you have no direct connection with. I have done this several times even at article directories with the strictest policies. Those links should provide some value to your readers just as the rest of your article does. Otherwise, if the link doesn’t provide added value to an article, I’d say don’t include it. The bottom line is, you want the people reading your article to get benefit from it.
