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Posts Tagged ‘how to write articles’

How to Write Articles for Branding and Web Traffic: Part Two

March 22nd, 2011

Hi All!

This is Part Two of a 2-part series, so hopefully you read Part One and are ready to continue with learning more about article writing for brand building!

Okay! So, you’ve outlined a list of article topics your target audience will benefit from, and you’ve written your first article. Now what? There are a wide variety of online article submission and distribution services available that operate in different ways and that serve different purposes.

Here is a brief overview of the types that you’ll encounter. They will: Require you to pay a minimal fee, or not charge anything, to distribute your article online and will create a web page for your article that can be found in search results; or, they will have subscribers who pay a monthly fee to access fresh content (i.e. articles submitted by experts like you) and those people will use your article in their blogs, ezines, websites, publications or newsletters; or, the service will pay you a minimal fee if they approve your article and choose to offer it on their website for others to publish;  or, they will charge you a minimal fee to distribute your articles to targeted outlets (not just distribute it online) interested in your topic matter.

You can find examples of services that match the variety I just provided by performing online searches using phrases like: Free services to submit articles; online article submission; getting paid to write or submit articles; and services to distribute articles online.

You will quickly see there are hundreds of options to get your article distributed and found by your target audience! It can be a bit overwhelming, so start by picking a few and try them out.

Another option, if you have the budget, is to hire a VA (Virtual Assistant) or a freelance article submission expert, and they can do all of this for you. You can find people who can help you by posting a request on a service like eLance.com and you’ll receive responses from many individuals who offer this type of support. Plus, you can also find article ghostwriters on eLance.com who are reasonably priced!

But, if you plan to get your articles out to the masses by yourself, here is a link to a compiled list of article submission services…it’s very comprehensive and many of them are FREE!!!

But before I conclude this 2-part series, I’d like to share one more strategy you can implement for getting your articles distributed: Contact publications and blogs directly that reach your target audience. No matter what your area of expertise is, there are going to be tons of magazines, ezines, newsletters (print and online), websites, social media community websites, and blogs seeking content from outside authors.

You can do online searches to find the ones who reach your target audience and then create a targeted hit-list to inquire if they accept guest articles. You will find that some of them will even have article submission guidelines available on their websites!

If they find your topic ideas interesting, feel their audience will benefit from your information, and find your articles to be well-written, there’s a very good chance they will publish your content.

And, even better, you will begin to establish a relationship with these targeted contacts and that can lead to their accepting your articles on a regular basis. This is a fabulous scenario because their audience will become more familiar with you and that is a key factor for building your topic expert brand!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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How to Write Articles for Branding and Web Traffic: Part One

March 07th, 2011

Hi All!

A very powerful strategy for building your topic expert brand positioning, and for driving traffic to your website, is to write articles and submit them to online article distribution services. Some small business owners also choose to do this for additional income (because there are some article services and media that will pay for your articles), but many experts don’t do it for pay; they write articles for the 2 other key reasons I mentioned.

In Part One of this 2-part series I’d like to outline 12 ways to make your articles compelling and how they can become significant traffic-drivers to your website.

I’ll then conclude this 2-part series next week by providing you with a list of some popular online article submission and distribution services that you can use to get your articles distributed to the masses.

12 Ways to Create Articles for Brand Building: 

When you write interesting articles in your area of expertise, it immediately positions you as an expert in your field. It also gives you the opportunity to showcase your knowledge and this can attract clients to you, as well as attract media interviews for you. But, if you’re not a great writer, don’t panic! You can hire ghostwriters (inexpensively) who will write them for you, and you can simply provide them with the topics you think will benefit your target audience.

However, regardless of whether you write the articles or someone does it for you, here are 12 tips for making them compelling and a valuable marketing tool for you:

  1. Grab The Reader’s Attention Fast: Make sure to create an interesting title for your article, and you can even make it a thought-provoking question. Also, in your opening paragraph set-up the “pain point” you’re going to solve and why it’s important to them. Writing articles that will solve a problem for your target audience is a great strategy for the angles you develop.
  2. Keep the Articles Simple and Easy to Understand Quickly: People want to read quick-hit information that they can grasp fast and benefit from. So make sure the articles you write provide good, helpful information and are written in a succinct style. A good way to achieve this is to use bullet points or numbered points so that your key messages and tips are easy to reference and follow. Having your key points “buried” in paragraphs will make it frustrating for your readers.
  3. Add Keywords for Online Search: Your articles will be posted in numerous ways online and will often be found by people doing keyword searches on your topic matter. So you want to make sure that you use the Google keyword tool that I mentioned back in the chapter about writing an effective Press Release, and add those popular search terms in the body of your articles. I know many experts who rapidly increase their search rankings because of writing articles, and oftentimes their articles start ranking higher in search results than their main websites do. Therefore, you want to implement this strategy!
  4. Make Your Articles Short: You don’t need to write super long articles to make them good. This is about quality not quantity! Most articles that I, and other experts write, are around 400-700 words. Keeping them short not only makes it easier for your readers but makes it easier for you to write them on an on-going basis.
  5. Don’t Pitch Your Services and Products: When you write articles it’s only about providing helpful info to your target audience. It is not about making your articles big infomercials to pitch yourself and/or your products. If you write good articles that people truly learn from, they will typically want to learn more about you and they will visit your website. The fastest way to kill your credibility and lose a potential “fan” is by trying to sell them on something in your article content.
  6. Be Yourself in Your Writing Style: Conveying yourself as likeable is important! If you’re a fun person, be sure to bring out your personality in your articles. This is the same advice I give to clients who hire me as a coach and consultant to launch their speaking careers! Don’t be one person on the stage and another person off stage. People can see through that because you’re not being authentic. And when you write articles, it may be the FIRST contact anyone has with you; even before seeing your website. So you want to make sure who you really are comes through in your writing. A good example of this is my writing style. I write in a very conversational way, and write very close to how I speak. I’m not afraid to add in sarcastic comments, casual verbiage or silly phrases to anything I write because that’s “who” I am…and I want my readers to get to know “me”!
  7. Don’t Quote Other Experts: The purpose of your articles is to showcase you; not someone who could be a competitor. You normally only want to quote other people in your articles if their information really adds to your message and content quality. Sure, you can quote stats and research results from studies you find, but try to avoid quoting or mentioning other experts who are similar to you.
  8. Offer Your Articles on Your Website: When I submit articles online, I also add them to my website, in Word, so that people can download them to use as content on their blogs, ezines, websites and newsletters. And, on my article web page, I clearly state they can use my articles as long as they are shown in their entirety, and the short bio about me provided at the end of each article is included. I also ask that they send me a link to it when it’s used. Millions of people are constantly seeking for content and understand they have to source the author who wrote it. This is great for driving their traffic to you!
  9. Create an E-book: Once you have several articles done, you can also compile them into an e-book and either offer it as a free gift on your website (as long as people provide you with their contact info to download it), or you can sell it. Either way, this is a good strategy for creating simple products and for building your contact list.
  10. Write Them Consistently: If possible, try to write and submit at least one article per month online. I know experts who do one-per-week because they receive so much benefit from doing so, but that may be tough for many of you. Start by writing a few, and after you get the hang of it and start developing a “formula” for cranking them out (or hire a ghostwriter to do them for you), you can start to increase how many you publish monthly.
  11. Share Your Links: Many article distribution services will create a web page for your article that will be found through online searches. You’ll have a unique url for your article’s page and can share that link to drive traffic to your article on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and in emails to your contact database.
  12. Embed Links in Your Articles: When you write an article, make sure to have certain words or phrases that have hyperlinks to pages on your website, your blog posts, Twitter page, Facebook page, and/or to other articles you have written and that are posted online. Just make sure the links take them to info that is relevant to what you’re writing about and to points you are making.

Okay! Get started on creating a list of article topics that will interest your target audience and showcase your topic expert knowledge. And be sure to read Part Two of this series for services that can distribute them for you to obtain massive website traffic and readers!

Cheers & Happy Marketing!

Lisa

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