Archive for February 23, 2008
Name Tags – How Creative
How To Use Articles For Marketing
I’m sure you’ve seen the advertisements, “Learn How To Use Articles For Marketing“. Promising you tons of traffic just for writing something down.
They make it seem so easy. Write an article, publish it on the Internet via a website, a blog, press release and BOOM, you’ve got traffic and sales and money!!!
Yeah right! If you believe this, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell ya.
Articles DO bring in traffic. Absolutely! But, it’s not as easy as 1-2-3. There’s just a little bit more to it. Difficult, not really. If you really want to learn how to use articles for marketing, here are the steps:
1) Decide on a keyword phrase. Yep, one keyword phrase. But know, that just any keyword phrase won’t do. You want a keyword phrase that is popular yet has little Internet competition. If you know how to choose the best keyword phrase for Internet marketing, great. If not, consult with an SEO marketer.
2) Write your article based on this keyword phrase. Use the keyword phrase in the title of your article, in the body of text of your article, in the beginning, in the middle and in the end of the body of text. Bold and/or italicize your keyword phrase here and there. If possible use your keyword phrase as an anchor text link.
3) Speaking of anchor text links. Try to incorporate anchor text links in your article, pointing back to your website. Believe it or not, this is the number on most important technique in the art of how to use your articles for marketing. It’s the anchor text linking that Google is looking for.
4) You want your article to have some unique content. That means you don’t want to grab someone else’s text and use it as your own. The search engines frown on duplicate content. They really do.
5) Once your article is completed, submit it to as many article submission sites as possible. You can even re-write the article as a press release and submit it to as many online press release sites as possible. When it comes to using articles for marketing, you need exposure. Submitting your article gives you that exposure.
6) Here comes the hard part. WAIT! Yep, wait. Your article can be on the Internet within 5 days. But, it will take longer for it to get indexed and be useful and point back to your website. It can take 30 days, it can take 365 days.
7) So, what’s the point? If article writing doesn’t bring in traffic quickly why bother? I’ll tell you why. An article you write today can get indexed in 30 days through one website. A few days or months later, other websites will index it. So on and so on and so on. I still see articles that I wrote more than 2 years ago just getting picked up and indexed by directories and search engines.
That means more links to my website.
That means higher placement possibilities in Google.
That means more traffic.
That means more customers.
All from something I wrote once.
Want to track your article’s indexing? Go to Google’s Alert service. It’s a free service that alerts you by email whenever certain text or a website is indexed by any online publication. (This includes search engines, directories, websites, etc.) This is how I know that my articles are still getting published.
So, that’s it. No secrets, no miracles, no magic potions. I’ve laid out the steps for you on how to use articles for marketing. Go ahead, get started. You’ll reap the rewards, I’m positive!