All Entries Tagged With: "publishing"

Should You Break Your Articles Up Into Parts?

I’ve browsed the article directories and have seen articles titles, Part 1 and Part 2. Is this a good practice?

I think, on the whole, no. Article marketing is not a good match for articles broken into parts because they typically need each other to be successful, but e-zine publishers and webmasters will rarely use both articles. They may only find one of them and not realize that it needs the other to work. If they do notice a two- or three-part article series they will likely pass it by and not publish it.

To be most effective in article marketing, write each article as a standalone article. You can write articles that are related to each other without requiring that they be used as a series. The longer your series the less likely your articles will be used by other publishers. I would stay away from the practice altogether.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

Article Marketing: Keeping Your Eye On The Prize

Many new article marketers start off writing articles then quickly peter out. They go into it with high hopes and big expectations only to be let down in the end. What went wrong? Usually it is unreasonable expectations that get the best of them.

If you expect article marketing to produce immediate results then you are in for a shock. There is a very good chance that you won’t see any results for several weeks, maybe even months. An article a week will yield you only 52 articles at the end of a year. That’s just a start for some article marketers. It could be a year or two before you see any real measurable results at that rate. It is better, if you can, to write and submit one article per day to at least one article directory. Then, at the end of that year you’ll have 365 articles in distribution. That’s 7 times the previous number, but the results could be far more than 7 times the return. Think exponentially.

Article marketing is not about getting published in the article directory. It’s about more than one website. It’s about multiple publications over time.

Every time a new e-zine publisher or webmaster picks up your article to publish on their site you are tapping into a whole new well of traffic and building additional streams of link popularity. That’s why the more articles you can produce the better. But you also need to ensure that your articles have a certain level of quality. Articles that lack quality won’t get published beyond the article directory and that won’t help you. You are aiming for publishers to pick up your articles and deliver you fresh streams of traffic.

Imagine this: One article in one directory every day for a year. Each article is picked up by one publisher per week. At the end of a year you will have thousands of backlinks and new sources of traffic for your website. Thousands! Tens of thousands, even. That certainly sounds better than 52, doesn’t it?

Well, you don’t have to take my word for it. When it comes to article marketing, doing it is so much more rewarding than talking about. So why not go for the prize? Start now.

Article Lists: A Must Or Mere Fluff?

Anything you can do to make your articles more readable is a must. Including lists.

There are two types of lists and both are valuable for use in articles. An ordered list consists of a list made up of numbers while an unordered list is a list of bullet points. Which type of list you use depends a lot on personal preference and style, but they both provide excellent benefits, including:

• Your content is easily scannable by your readers
• A good list breaks up the gray
• You can make your points stand out better
• Lists allow your readers to get a quick overview before committing to your full article

The above unordered list illustrates that people will read a list before they read a full article. They really want to scan and see if there is anything interesting that attracts their attention. When they do see something they like then they will stop and read. That’s why lists are so powerful.

But list also help the search engines find your content more easily as well. Robots do pay attention to lists. You won’t rank better if you include lists in your articles, but robots do slow down for the lists because the code that creates the list tells them that this is special information. If you include your keyword in a list once or twice then the search engine robots will be sure to seize upon that.

Remember, your articles are for marketing purposes. You are writing in hopes that e-zine and newsletter publishers in your industry will like your articles well enough to publish them. If a publisher can get your lists and enjoy your articles then their readers will too. You’ll increase your articles’ chances of getting published.

Article Length: Does Size Matter?

When it comes to writing articles, too long can be as big a killer as too short. There is an optimal length to articles, but it largely depends on what the purpose of your article is.

If you want to publish your articles your article directories for mass distribution then I wouldn’t go less than 400 words. Probably 400-600 words is best, though you can get away with up to 700 words. I wouldn’t go beyond that. The reason is because you are targeting those articles toward e-zine and newsletter publishers. Those publishers are generally looking for well-written articles that are short and optimized around a specific keyword. Anything less than 400 words is probably too short to provide any real SEO value. Anything longer than 600-700 words is too long to maintain reader interest and will likely be rejected by the publishers who can help you the most due to space considerations.

If you are targeting website publishers – third-party news sources, content publishers, and other such sources where your articles will likely be converted into HTML and enhanced by graphics then you might get away with a bit longer. But the 400-600 word length is still a good rule of thumb unless a specific publisher has their own guidelines. If you are targeting your articles toward specific publishers then you should follow their guidelines if they are different than the norm. If all else fails, contact the publisher directly and ask them what they prefer. You should always tailor your article content to the publisher you are seeking to publish your content if you can.