Simple Steps to More Effective Article Marketing

Some of the most successful internet marketers built their empires through article marketing. They provide informative articles to ezines, websites, and article banks that establishe their expertise, invite readers to visit their website or order their freebies, and, incidentally, provide backlinks via the resource box. Many of today’s marketers, however, are so focused on getting the backlinks from popular article banks like EzineArticles.com, and so fearful of duplicate content or keyword stuffing penalties, that they are missing out on the many additional benefits of article marketing.

The primary goal of your website and articles should be to focus on potential customers in your chosen niche. While you want a large number of visitors to your site, you want those visitors to be potential customers, not just browsers. Your articles can provide that focus. For example, if you are promoting your local real estate business, you want to identify local potential buyers and sellers. By targeting your article accordingly, you attract your best potential customers.

Most resource boxes simply direct the reader to visit your website. However, you can maximize the effectiveness of the resource box by including a more specific call to action. For example, you can offer additional information in the form of a free report or eMail course. If you don’t already have a way to capture contact information on your website, this is a good time to add it. Again, the free report is a tried and true tactic for obtaining contact information from your site visitors and opening the door to your offer.

Most hosting plans include unlimited auto responders. These are an excellent tool for testing the call for action in your resource box. Experiment with different wordings in your resource box and track the results until you find the best combination of words.

You can also test the freebie you offer to see which offer brings the best response. Report or eMail course? Is it the checklist or free download?

For optimal results, your freebie should include advertising for your paid product or service. Many times, the freebie helps the customer feel slightly obligated to you and may make the sale easier.

While EzineArticles.com is generally the favorite article bank, there are many others as well. In obtaining backlinks, it may be more effective to submit 20 articles to different article banks than submitting all 20 to ExineArticles.com.

 Once you start submitting articles, you should periodically Google your name or a key phrase from the article to see where it has been used. You may find that a popular ezine or website has both reprinted your article and promoted the page for excellent search results.

 You can then contact that publisher and tailor specific articles to his needs, benefiting from both the backlinks and his promotion efforts.

 Many writers, in an attempt to avoid the much misunderstood duplicate content penalty, submit multiple rewrites of the same article. In the long run, this often does more harm than good, especially if the rewrites are of poor quality or broken English. Remember, you want to establish your expertise. A quality article will enhance the perceived quality of your product or service.

As you develop a following for your articles, you can add an article syndication script to your website. With this script, your article will automatically appear on the websites that copied the script.

You can also add an rss feed to your website so that your followers can be kept updated with your latest articles and offers.

Finally, you can recycle information in many ways. For example, articles like this one can be developed into a resource checklist providing helpful links for each step. Or a series of articles can be put together into an eBook.

Article marketing need not stop with a handful of backlinks. It can be a powerful tool to establish your business, grow your business, and achieve success—without spending a dime on advertising.