All Entries Tagged With: "time management"

How Long Does It Take To Write An Article?

Isn’t it time consuming to write an article? That’s a question we get a lot. How much time should it take? Really?

There’s no easy answer because everyone is different, but it shouldn’t really take long. If you know your niche well you should be able to write at least a handful of articles off the top of your head. If you sit down and make a list of topics that you could easily write about off the top of your head, with no research, you’ll probably come up with at least 25 topics. If you are a true expert in your niche you can probably rattle off 100 or more.

Those should be the first articles you write. 500-600 word articles. You can knock that out in 10 minutes if you are an expert in your niche and don’t need research.

But what if you do need to research a topic? How long should it take then? Not much longer really. Here’s what you do:

1. Research first – Write your article topics out in a list as before and group them according to like-topics. Then research those topics that fall into the same general category at one time.
2. Write all like-topic articles at one time – If you do all your research at one time and write the articles immediately after, you’ll likely find that you can write your articles in the same amount of time that you take to write them off the top of your head. The only difference is you just spent about 30 minutes extra to research them before writing them. If you can write 10 articles in one sitting then you’ll be done only slightly longer than it takes to write off the top of your head.

If you write articles like this then it shouldn’t take you long at all and the return on your investment can be huge.

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.

Article Marketing On A Budget

Article marketing is one of the most powerful methods of marketing. You can get great traffic long term for little cost. If you do it yourself then the cost is absolutely free. But what does it mean to do it yourself?

Do-it-yourself article marketing is when you write the article and submit it to directories yourself. It can be very time consuming to do this. Should you do it?

If you have a limited budget then you might find it difficult to pay someone to write and submit your articles for you. On the other hand, if you are busy building your business then you might find it hard to spend the time on this necessary activity. What should you do?

I recommend starting slow. Write one article per week and submit it to one or two directories. Do this for a couple of months and see what kind of results you get. Then step it up a bit. Try writing two articles per week, or submit one to five directories instead of two. After another couple of months you’ll want to step it up again. During this time you should be tracking your results. Are you getting traffic from your articles? Are your articles getting picked up by e-zine publishers and webmasters? If not, you need to find out why and make some changes to the way that you are writing the articles.

When your DIY article marketing starts paying off, take the income that you’ve gained from your efforts and put it toward outsourcing. Let’s say you sold one of your cool $99 widgets. Take the $99 and pay a writer to write some articles then you distribute them to your directories. As your income increases you can start writing more articles. You’ll also be busier fulfilling orders and taking care of business so you’ll have less time for the article writing and marketing. As your income goes up and you spend more time running the business, outsource more and more of the writing and submission process. Eventually you’ll be able to pay someone to write an article a day and submit that article to several directories. That is the ideal.