Introduction to Article Marketing - What You Might Need To Know!

• Basic Theory
• Using Keywords
• Keyword Research
• Headlines Grabbers
• Article Content
• Article Body
• Resource Box
• Article Submission

The following is a list of what you'll be able to find in this lens.

To jump from one section to another, all you need to do is to click on the section names listed to the left:

If you were to pose that question to a group of beginners who are just starting out, 9 out of 10 will probably say that it just involves submitting articles to article directories.

While that isn't wrong, it is only part true. Submitting an article to an article directory would get it on the internet. That part is what's correct. But, it won't mean that the article will actually get viewed, and it also won't mean that people will click the backlink. Basically, you could end up with 1,000 articles that each get 1 view a day since no one can find the article, and getting a total of maybe only 10 click-throughs. Which is why, the basic 'dummies' theory of article marketing is this:

1. Position your articles where they can be found

2. Write headlines that gain attention

3. Evoke interest in the article body

4. Call to action in the resource box

5. Get more visitors to visit your article

Chances are, unless you've done article marketing before, you probably didn't understand any of that. Let's take a look at them one by one.

Seeing as we're getting the nomenclature out of the way, 'keyword density' is the amount of a certain keyword per 100 words. Keywords are important - that can't be stressed enough. Considering that search engines are still the primary way in which people look for anything on the internet, it means that people who are looking for things in whatever niche you're in, are going to be doing so on search engines.

Thus, when talking about positioning your articles, it essentially means positioning them in the relevant searches, so that they're more likely to be found by the right people.

What happens if this isn't done?

Well, say you had an article about blogging for money, but it didn't contain any keywords that are being searched for a decent amount of times per month. In this sort of case, there would be no way that anyone would find your article, and so it would go pretty much unread and unattended. Admittedly, for long articles there inadvertently ends up being a keyword used here or there, but for reliable results, you're going to want at least a 1% keyword density (but not more than 3%).

First though, you're going to have to find the keywords that you intend to use.

To start off with, the keyword research tool of choice is Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Seeing as Google is the most popular search engine around, getting data from it seems to be a logical place to begin.

When conducting keyword research, there are three considerations in particular that play an important role:

#1Number of Searches - Quite literally, this is just the number of searches per month. If a term has a high number of searches, it means lots of people are looking for it, which definitely makes it a better choice.

#2Competition - Once you have a keyword that has a decent amount of searches, plug it into Google and search for it. When you get the results, take note of how many there are. For instance, if there are 11,800,000 results, then that means a lot of people are competing for that keyword. On the other hand, if you end up with something like 1,800 results, then there are very few competing websites. Needless to say, with less competition, you stand a much better chance of appearing on the first page of the search results, which is really what you should be aiming for. Once you're there, you will no doubt see a dramatic increase in your views.

#3Profitability - Not all traffic is as profitable, and sometimes, for certain keywords, the traffic that is obtained just refuses to be converted. While there are a lot of factors that can affect this, it isn't too relevant as far as keyword research is concerned. Instead, it is better to know just one simple test of the 'profitability' of a keyword. When you perform a search for the keyword to scope out the competition, take notice as to whether or not any adverts appear. If they do, then that means someone out there feels that it is worth spending money on that keyword. Admittedly, this isn't a 100% accurate test, but it should suffice to give you a general idea.

By looking at these three areas of keyword research, you should end up with a list of keywords which you can use to position your articles well.

Remember: The idea is to get profitable keywords that have a decent number of searches per month, and low competition.

Mind you, there is a difference between enriching and stuffing, and search engines are smart enough to recognize when someone is trying to fool them. Insert keywords in such a way that they flow smoothly through the article, and follow the 1% to 3% keyword density rule closely. For each article, it is generally advisable to have one 'short' keyword of about 2 to 3 words, and two 'long' keywords of 4 or more words.

If you do all of this, your articles should be showing up for the keywords that you're targeting, and so, all that remains is to consider the other aspects of article marketing.

For this reason, your headlines are of the utmost importance. Essentially, they're going to 'make or break' your article as far as it getting views is concerned. Unfortunately, once you've submitted an article you don't get to edit or tweak the headline, so you're going to have to get it as right as possible on the very first try.

Certainly, trying to sum up the entire eBooks that are dedicated to the subject of headlines, and how to write them well, in this small space, would be close to impossible. But, at least you can be pointed in the right direction. Since the whole purpose of the headline is to attract attention, think of what has grabbed your attention in the past. Certain words may tend to perform better than others, but since you can't be sure without testing... it probably isn't the right place to experiment.

Here are some types of headlines, with examples:
Lists
such as, "Top 5 Ways to Groom a Dog for Competitions".

Questions
such as, "Do You Want To Learn How To Groom a Dog?"

Commands
such as "Start to Learn to Groom a Dog, Now!"

Abstract
such as, "Coming Soon: Fluffed Tails and Trimmed Coats" (careful, its tough to pull these off)

Remember, all that you need to do is attract attention in your headline. It is up to the rest of your article to build interest, and make clicking the backlink more likely.

These are both the article body, and the resource box, and each has their own set of rules. Knowing how to craft an article properly could let you get audiences interested in the article body, and then spur them on to action in the resource box.

First and foremost, of course, it must create and maintain interest throughout, so that the reader doesn't stop reading. Apart from that, a good article body can also act as a 'pre-sell' of the backlink. In other words, it could make the reader more open to the suggestions that you might make.

Bearing all that in mind, here are a few points that you should consider:

1. Relevancy
Seeing as your target traffic is mostly coming from search engines, when they type in a keyword, they probably have something specific in mind.
For long keywords, it is simple to know what they want, such as someone searching for 'best place in Europe to fish' is probably looking for just that.

On the other hand, someone typing in 'Europe fishing' could be looking for places to fish, information about the fishing industry in Europe, or... well, anything at all. If your niche is something to do with fishing as a hobby rather than the fishing industry, then of course, you're going to want your article to be about the former. While it is tough to get your article to be relevant for all the individual keywords that you're targeting, you should definitely try to give your potential audience exactly what they want.

2. Creating Interest
Of course, if your article is exactly what someone was searching for, then your problem is solved. However, if it isn't, then it is going to have to create the sort of interest that is going to keep a reader reading from start to finish. Truth is, there are no hard and fast rules about creating interest, but basically, if you give a reader content that is appealing to them, they're probably going to stick around.

In short, the article body should provide something of value, whether in terms of advice, general information, or even 'secrets'. Otherwise, it should at least hint at any other benefits that will be obtained by reading the article. Taking care of both these aspects as far as the article body is concerned will put you off to a great start. Still, there is one very important rule to the article body...

Important Note: Never conclude the article in its body. The article proper is only actually done after the resource box, so do not attempt to put in any type of conclusion before that.

More importantly, it is also the place where the backlink is contained, and for this reason, some people often describe it as the most important part of the article.

Since the focal point of the resource box is getting people to actually click the backlink, it is essentially a call to action. After the reader has been guided through the bulk of the article, and pre-sold to as much an extent as is possible regarding what your backlink has to offer, he should find a clear course of action in the resource box.

Commonly, a resource box might contain something like:

"If you want more information, just visit http://www.yoursite.com."

Although that is a call to action, it isn't a very good one. Imagine how much better it would be if it was more like:

"If you want to learn more, there is this great eBook that'll make you practically an expert, and it is up for grabs FREE at http://www.yoursite.com."

By adding the incentive, the call to action will appeal to the reader all the more. Of course, it doesn't have to be a free eBook, any incentive would work fine. It could just as easily be discounts, special offers, or even just content that is of interest.

At the end of the day, the important part is that the reader be given some reason, any reason, to want to click your backlink. That should be the conclusion to your article; the logical next step of continuing through the backlink. Following these few pointers should get you both and article body and resource box that is much more effective than the regular variety.

Assuming that you targeted some keywords as per your research, then it should be showing up somewhere on the search engine listings, but in order to get more traffic, you're going to want to be higher up those listings.

To accomplish this, the best way is to do it in much the same fashion as you would for any webpage: Build backlinks.

Of course, you don't want to spend too much time building backlinks to a third party website that is not your own, so it is probably a good idea to start off with the easiest method of all: Social bookmarking.

Just bookmarking your article on a couple of dozen social bookmarks alone could dramatically alter their search engine list position. As you get higher up, the traffic to your article will no doubt increase, and in tandem with that, so will the amount of visitors that you'll be getting through your backlink. Simple and quick, yet it could be one of the most defining parts of your article marketing campaign.

Another, lesser used technique, to build backlinks is to resubmit your published article to other article directories, with the backlink changed to point to your original article. Even on its own, this could be great, especially if you want to get even higher after you run out of websites on which to social bookmark your article.

With a built-up supply of backlinks linking to your article, you should have no problem appearing even in the top couple of results for a low-competition keyword on Google.

Choosing the right place to submit your article depends on a number of factors, and there really is no substitute for actual trial and error. Tests have consistently shown that articles published there have a tendency to outperform those published elsewhere.

Partly, this is due to the high Page Ranking of EzineArticles.com, but it is also due to the internal links that could really help your article out once it reaches the 'most viewed' link bar for a given niche. So, if you're thinking about starting up, it would probably be best to try out EzineArticles.com first.

Should that not work for you, then there are always other simple options that are.

Furthermore, there are also few techniques that are as easy to execute, provided you know the logic behind it - which you now do.

Put it to good use, and you'll no doubt find that you get more and more traffic with each passing day.

I've found that one of the most common stumbling blocks for people, is knowing how to find good affiliate programs.

In this Squidoo page I will help you overcome this, by sharing with you a sneaky little trick that involves some spy work and using the popular social media site called "Hubpages". It's no surprize that a lot of affiliates use Hubpages, as the domain has authority in Google, and it's pages can rank quite easily.

This makes Hubpages a great place to do some market research to find some good affiliate programs.

What I like to do then, is browser through the categories looking for pages that have been set up by affiliates. For this post I will show you an example I did which took me all of 5 mins to do.

Under: "Home, Family, Parenting" ==> "Home Furnishings" ==> "Garden Furniture", you will see a Hubpage called "Vintage Garden Furniture"

It's very clear that this Hubpage is targeting the keyword phrase "Vintage Garden Furniture", so what I then do is check out the search volume of this keyword phrase and also the SEO competition for it.

"Most people use sites like Hubpages because they know that you don't have to do as much back linking on the pages to get top Google rankings".

The reason for this is because as I mentioned above, the domain of Hubpages.com has authority in Google. Authority sites require little no backlinks, just look at Amazon.

However it is not hard to out rank this kind of sites if you do a little backlinking to your website. So for this example you can easily ride on the back of this persons great keyword research, build a page targeting that keywords and just go better SEO than them!

This particular person is monetizing this keyword phrase with Ebay, which is not a bad option for this kind of phrase, however I know that Ebay are strict to join as an affiliate. Therefore all you need to do is rinse and repeat what I just did for all the categories and sub-categories on Hubpages until you find a product that Amazon or Clickbank have, and you can affiliate yourself with.

This is not the only way to find good affiliate programs and products, but you would be amazed how many great keywords you can uncover in minutes by using the strategy, because essentially you are working smarter and not harder, which is what I like to do!

ArticleBlurper is the simplest, fastest way to have a single article submitted to multiple article directories without having to spend too much time tweaking the article or sending it one by one to all these directories!

Best of all, you can register for all these directories without actually having to go to the sites one by one at all!

No catch, other than my asking you to "Retweet" and let folks know about this freebie.

And my motive is transparent and rather simple.

I want to meet and network with new folks on Twitter & Squidoo, and I figure the best way to do it is by giving away something of value with no strings attached.

Perhaps later, when you're interested in twitter marketing services or any of the marketing products of mine, you'll remember me and decide to do business with me.

But that's it in a nutshell...

Oh.. I almost forgot. I've also included A Step-by-step tutorial HERE if you want to find out more about the software first.

#1: Follow @richiereveley2 on Twitter (that's me!)

#2: Re-Tweet this exact message:

RT @richiereveley2 is giving away his Article Submitter software - ArticleBlurper. Get it FREE: http://su.pr/1dT8LJ Plz RT

You MUST re-tweet the exact message above, with no changes, or this won't work. To open up Twitter with the message already pre-filled for you, click here (then all you have to do is click "tweet").

#3: Within 10 minutes or so of your RT, I'll send you a Direct Message with the download link.

That's it! I won't ask for your email. And you don't have to do anything else for this Personal Edition

Cheers,

richiereveley
P.S. You have nothing to lose. Try it out and see if ArticleBlurper will add more traffic to your Squidoo lenses?

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