How can Article Marketing Work for You?

by Craig Ritsema

Published on this site: September 14th, 2006 - See more articles from this month

If you are involved in any kind of online business activity you probably already understand the importance of using articles as a part of your marketing plan. People use the internet most often to find information on a particular subject matter. A well written article should provide that information.

I have a website which I use to publish other peoples articles with. Since I do not automatically accept all articles to be published, it requires me to read the steady supply of fresh articles being constantly written.

For anyone familiar with this website management activity, the phrase "fresh articles" can be somewhat misleading. It's amazing how many different articles can say the same thing, offering very little new perspective.

Article marketing has become so popular that it has spawned a whole new Private Label Rights industry. Basically this involves one group of people writing articles which can then be used by a different group of people as their own article. The original author's name is not referenced as part of the article publishing.

While on the surface this seems to be a simple solution for web site owners looking to use articles for promotion of their business, the long term affect is that the same ideas are repeated over and over in slightly different format each time. Publishers looking to use your material learn to spot this kind of writing in a "New York Minute" and quickly discard it as duplicate content.

So, this brings us to the point of this article.

How can article marketing work for you?

1. Use only original articles for publishing.
   
   Most people would probably rather endure a root canal than write lots of articles. It also takes time and experience to gather the material needed for writing an article.
   
   All of us have personalities (some more than others...). Personalities are kind of like snowflakes - no two are the same. Our personalities show thru our writing style, making the information more appealing and interesting. Sometimes this happens automatically, other times it requires time and effort to perfect this quality of writing.
   
   Bottom line is that information sells and if you've developed the ability to generate quality information then you've developed for yourself a solid asset for business purposes.
   
   Another approach many online business owners have taken is to use ghost writing services who write unique content for you only. I have also tried this approach and have learned that high-quality writing is not inexpensive. You pretty much get what you pay for.
   
   If you have the financial resources for this kind of quality writing then use it! Many other large company executives, politicians and presidents of nations have been doing it this way for years. Their time is certainly more valuable than sitting down to craft a well written article.
   
   Do a cost and benefit analysis first. If the profit is still there and the quality of the articles meets your standards, then it would seem to be a good business decision in favor of using ghost writing services.
   
   
2. Experiment with different writing styles.
   
   For most people, quality writing does not just happen overnight. It takes time and effort. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
   
   Reading some of my first articles, I realize this first hand (it's still not perfect...). But I think the reason they are still being published and read by others is that the content was something I believed in and not something just properly structured for the search engines.
   
   Writing for the search engines, however, is not something to be ignored. If you have any experience with running an online business you understand the importance of this and realize it cannot be ignored.
   
   Crafting the proper balance between interesting and informative article content takes time to learn. It requires being flexible with your writing style and using different formats.
   
   Some information is best communicated with longer paragraphs, other material with short one-liner paragraphs. Top ten lists or other similar lists bring clarity to how-to kinds of articles. Try different formats; see what works best for you.
   
   
3. Measure the effectiveness of your articles.
   
   Most popular article directory sites capture viewing statistics for the articles you publish. View these statistics periodically to see what people are more interested in. You may be surprised what you learn.
   
   Realize that different writing styles affect readership but also the subject matter of the article also affects viewing statistics. Some subjects are boring and other subjects have been written about by many different authors.
   
   If you want to measure the success of using different writing styles experiment using the same subject area. This will give you a better indication of whether an article is popular due to the way you wrote it rather than the subject.
   
   
4. Realize the long term benefits.
   
   For most people quality article writing is not learned overnight. It takes time and mostly patience.
   
   The rewards however can be many. If you're selling an online product or service, you now have available a very effective, low cost method to promote with. Being able to effectively promote on the internet can make or break your business.
   
   The rewards are also residual. This means simply that published articles which are interesting, informative and read by others tend to stay published for many years. If you have a link pointing back to your site in the resource box, then your visibility on the internet continues to grow day by day as you generate quality information.

Master article marketing and make it work for you!

Bill Flagg: If you would like to receive more great tips on how to increase your registrations and decrease your workload, visit http://www.RegOnline.com/eTips