Article Writing: An Important Part Of Your Marketing Arsenal

Thursday, December 24, 2009 ·

by: Jez Lacey

Unless you are totally clueless about the internet and how it works, you must realise that everyone trawling the net is searching for one thing and that is information, i.e. CONTENT!

In fact there is not really any other business building tool that compares with writing articles when it comes to building your online business, read on to discover why.

Regularly adding keyword rich quality articles on your website will help boost your search engine ranking, as search engines are always looking for updated content to add to their index. Also, other site owners are much more likely to link to you if you provide something other than just one long sales letter.

A constantly updated website with quality content will not only attract more people to your site, it will keep them there longer and will cause them to come back more often. If for example you have a site about health and fitness, would you not check back if the site was constantly being updated with more articles about how to get yourself fitter?

When it comes to FREE ways of generating traffic to your site, there are few that can compare to submitting your articles to article directories and ezine publishers. Simply include a “resource box” at the end of your article and away you go.

A resource box is simply a 3-6 line biography about you and/or your web-site it should include a link to your site or maybe even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter. An important point to remember when writing your resource box is to specify clearly that each article is to be reprinted ‘as is’ within your attached resource box.

This method of traffic generation can and will bring you a lot of traffic. Let us say for example you have written a great article about your favourite hobby, and an ezine with a subscriber database of 30-50,000 picks it up. Many of those subscribers will read your article, and if it’s a good quality one may well be intrigued enough to click the URL included in your resource box. That is totally FREE traffic for very little effort; it does not get much better than that!

It is also a good idea if you are adding articles you have written for your website to include a resource box on those articles too. This means that people who visit your site will be enabled to use your ‘copy’ with their sites too, as long as they include your resource box.

Articles can be easily used for generating newsletter subscribers. Simply take a group of related articles and compile them into a ‘special report’ that you then give away as a bonus for subscribing. In the same vein, add articles to an autoresponder sequence and give it away as an ‘email course’. In both cases sprinkle affiliate links throughout the text and link it to an autoresponder to create an “automated income stream”.

You may be aware that having a mailing list is one of the most important ingredients for a successful online business. But, having a list is not enough; you need to build up trust with your list. This is often known as ‘cultivating’ your list.

By regularly sending quality articles to your list you will become viewed upon as an expert in your business field, and build up a level of trust with your subscribers over time. The effect will be that your subscribers will be keen to take up your special offers, promotions and other products and services. The key is NOT to offer your list a product too early in the relationship, just so you can make a quick buck. A list of people that trust you is as good as money in the bank, you should not squander it!

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