Article marketing is a good starter marketing method for the following reasons:
• It gives you a chance to establish yourself as an expert.
• There are virtually no costs associated with it.
• You can easily change your approach, topics or niche in a moment’s notice.
• It’s easy to see what information gets the most attention from your audience.
• The leads generated from article marketing also tend to be high quality, which makes sense considering that they went through a considerable amount of work to become your lead. They were probably searching for information on a topic that you know, and came across one of your articles. Then they proceeded to actually read the article or at least scan it in order to find the offer at the end for more information and the link to get there. Your prospect followed the link to your website and provided you with their contact information. In the world of online prospects, those are some pretty motivated people.
• As an added bonus, the backlinks that are generated going to your site will help to increase your Google ranking over time, since our primary focus of the this section is for direct lead generation, not Website ranking. I am going to stick to the strategies that will directly generate leads. To learn more about page rank review Chapter 3 – Pouring the foundation, pages 61-66.
How to Implement Article Marketing
I have used article marketing and it’s really quite simple. Here are some simple steps to follow:
1. Get your keywords handy that you selected in step one. If you want to review the process of selecting your best keywords review the “keyword” post on this site.
2. Identifying your topics. There are lots of different ways to go about identifying your topics. When I first started writing articles, I took about an hour and wrote down all of the stages and categories that a person would have to know about and then created titles from that. Now I use a different method, which I would recommend that you start with. I think it’s easier and creates more effective articles in the long run.
First, you have to think about that perfect client, the person that you want to help and attract to your program. Review everything that you know about them and get yourself into a state where you can relate to their current reality. Then start writing down all of the questions and concerns that this person may have.
This is different from just dividing all of the categories that they will need to understand and writing a little about everything because if you consider the current situation of someone starting they will be significantly more concerned with the first few steps in the process than they are the rest of the system. This does NOT mean that you should avoid explaining the big picture in some of your articles so that people who read your material regularly have the opportunity to gather that you do have knowledge and a plan beyond the first few steps. If you want to provide the most help, possible in 400-700 words then you should write the majority of your articles on the concerns that pop up for someone in your client’s current situation. This will most likely mean you will be writing about the first steps that need to be taken to achieve growth in their business.
This allows you to give enough detail that people can actually implement your recommendations and see results, which will significantly increase their trust in you, and their initial success will fuel their desire for more progress. It also protects you from every worrying about putting all of your skills, techniques, strategies and knowledge out there to the world for free. Even if you wrote 1,000 articles and someone took the time to read them all, they would still only have a very good grasp on the first few steps in establishing their business.
Here are some examples of questions the independent advisors in your market might have if you were a financial planner who trains other advisors how to specialize in reducing taxes:
• How can I determine what financial planning specialty is right for me?
• What are the signs that I am a generalist not really a specialist?
• How can I increase the value to my clients while decreasing my workload?
• How can I get more clients?
• How can I attract more affluent clients?
• How can I provide my clients with better service in less time?
• What are affluent clients really looking for?
• What marketing and advertising techniques attract affluent clients?
• How do I minimize my work hours without damaging the level of service I provide?
• How can I take my business to the next level?
• How do I earn the trust of new clients sooner?
I’m sure if this was your actual topic, you could create many more questions. Once you have as many as you can come up with simply pick out your top keywords (shoot for 7-10) from the list you created.
3. Create Some Titles to Work From
Next, craft an article title for each keyword using each title. Let’s pretend that three of your keywords are tax efficient planning, top financial planners and high net worth clients. (I have no idea if these are good keywords or not – I just picked them randomly.) Here is an example of how you could take the first question and create a title for each keyword:
• Tax Efficient Planning – Is it the Right Specialty for You?
• 5 Reasons Top Financial Planners Specialize in Tax Efficient Planning
• High Net Worth Clients – Finding a Specialty that Serves Them
Notice each of the titles are on the same topic but with a slightly different twist, so if you had nine keywords to focus on you could easily create a title that would lead you to write an article on this topic that was related but still original from the others. Another perk is that since the titles are all answering essentially the same question about specialties you should be able to write each of them faster by doing them one after another because you’re already thinking about that same topic.
Make sure to place the keyword near the beginning of your title. Words near the beginning are considered to be more relevant when the search engine is looking for information.
Title idea starters:
How to…
Discover…
Recession proof ways…
How I…
Revealed,
New ways
Top Ways
# Secrets
# Ways
If you can’t work the keyword into the statement smoothly, then throw the keyword in the front of the statement followed by a colon. Some examples are:
• Short Sales: Become an expert in two weeks
• Divorce Specialist: Grow your practice by specializing
• Tax Planning Agriculturists: Stop overpaying your taxes
4. Write a short introduction
You only need a very short introduction. With 400-600 words to share your message, you don’t have any words to waste. So write a couple of lines that give the reader a clear indication of the content that is to follow.
5. Great article body formats
You want the body of your article to be easy and entertaining to read. Use a relaxed, conversational tone. Keep the paragraphs in your body short, and place a blank line between each paragraph. Also add bullet points or numbered items to depict lists of things.
6. Conclusion
One or two lines summarizing the material are all you need. Your “author resource box” serves as the rest of the conclusion to your article. What is the “author resource box”? Different article directories might use a different name, but they all give you a little space to write something about you and what you would like the reader to do next. (We talked about the author resource box earlier when discussing text anchors.) You are limited to how long your resource box can be. For example, Ezine articles allow you about 300 words.
Note: On Ezine articles, you can find the author resource box by logging in and clicking profile manager. They also have a video with some tips for how to create an effective one.
The author resource box is important for multiple reasons, it:
• Appears on every article
• Is the last thing that your prospect reads
• Holds the key to what motivates them to go to your Website
• Provides the backlink to your site
Things you should consider when creating your author resource box:
• A photo of you (if it is allowed)
• The benefit/solution you can provide
• Why they should believe you.
• What to do to get more information, for example click the link to download a free, audio, video, eBook or Ezine subscription.
• Keep it short and concise.
• Use a keyword that you are focusing on in your link.
My example:
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Optimizing Your Articles with Keywords
I’ll be honest with you, I am not an expert at determining the exactly frequency a keyword should be used to get search engines to identify your document quickly, but without getting you labeled as a “stuffer.” Stuffer, referring to a person who is just cramming in keywords for the purpose of search engines optimization. Many SEO experts argue that the days of keyword “optimization” are over. Search engines like Google have become much too good at weeding out documents that provide little value and high keyword density, and can apparently calculate the frequency that a particular keyword should appear in a document.
That being said, it’s still important to make sure that your reader and the search engines know what your material is about. To do that you must use the terminology that they are looking for. This means making sure to include your keyword near the beginning of your title and then “sprinkle” it throughout your material as it would appear naturally anyway. Also, keep in mind that Ezine articles among other directories limit the frequency of keywords, so if you get too carried away they will make you eliminate some of them.
Increasing the speed of your writing
Practice is the best way to increase your speed over time. It’s the only way to refine your skills and learn what works for you. Here are also a few keys that can help you get started:
• Write your titles ahead of time. You can write them at the beginning of the day or even once a week. Use your questions and your keywords to combine them and create your titles. Remember that each question can create a title for each of your keywords. I like to do eight or so at a time, all based on the same question, so the topics are closely related. By writing on these closely related topics all at once, you will be able to get more done in less time because you don’t have to stop and brainstorm for ideas between each article.
• Take a time out. After you are done writing all of your articles on a specific question take at least a 30-minute break. When you return, you can tackle a new question. Create titles for it or select from some you have already created and hammer out a new set of articles.
• Don’t edit each article immediately after writing it. Before the articles are ready to submit, you will need to edit them at least once. When I got started I made the mistake of editing each article right after I wrote it. I would not recommend this. The material is still fresh in your mind and more than once I would see what I “meant to write” not what I “actually wrote” so put your fresh articles away and come back to them a few hours later or the next day for an edit.
See Post on Submitting Articles to Directories for the next step.
(If you are looking for information on how to write content for Ezine Newsletters see the following posts… Ezine Newsletter Getting Started, and Implementing a New Ezine
* Don’t want to deal with all of this? Contact Brassy Marketing (click the “contact us” tab at the top of the page) to see how we can take care of everything for you.