Article Marketing- Don't Make These 5 Mistakes
Thursday, May 14, 2009 at 12:00PM By Mike Hutchins
Article marketing, despite increasing competition, is still a valuable means of promoting a product or business. While the concept of writing a basic article seems simple on the surface, the process requires attention to detail and thoughtful planning. In fact, successful article social marketing could very well depend on avoiding these 5 common mistakes.
1) Selecting The Wrong Article Category
Article directories offer a wide variety of article categories. Because ezine publishers select articles relevant to the topic of their ezines, articles published must have appropriate content for the selected category.
If the content provided does not match the category, readers will quickly dismiss the article, and move on.
Simply take an extra few minutes to carefully consider an appropriate category for your article.
2) Creating "Blocks" Of Text
Generally speaking, people tend to scan articles, rather than read them word for word. For that reason, keep your article readable by avoiding big blocks of text with multiple sentences.
Try and keep your paragraphs short, with no more than 2-3 sentences.
3) Failure To Create A Headline That Promotes Readership
The article headline should be written in such a fashion that it creates interest in reading the article. This can be acheived by creating curiosity with the headline.
After reading the headline, an individual must feel as if reading the article will benefit them in some fashion. Consequently, articles that provide "tips" or "strategies" can be effective at inviting readership.
"How to" article titles are effective because they offer potentially useful information to individuals interested in a given topic.
When article marketing, It is also important to place the targeted keyword for the article in the article title for Search Engine Optimization(SEO).
4) Writing A Boring Resource Box
The resource box is your opportunity to promote a product or business. For the most part, the reason an article is written, is for the opportunity to have a reader click on a link to a selected destination.
First and foremost, the reader must know the personal benefits involved with clicking a link. Those benefits could be to obtain a free report, or to get more needed information.
Generally speaking, readers don't care as much about who an author is as much as they care about what that author can do for them.
Always have a "call to action" for the reader to click the links in the resource box. A classic example being, "Click Here Now".
5) Writing An Article That Is Too Long
If your intention with your article is to promote a product or business, it is important that the reader reads enough of the article to reach the resource box.
If the article is too long, the chances increase that the reader will stop reading the article prior to reaching the resource box.
Try and keep your article length between 300 words- 400 words.
These are only a few of many suggestions that could potentially help to make your article marketing more effective.
Ultimately, trial and error is the best way to learn the details of quality article marketing.
If your goal is to write network marketing articles, a great training ground is Renegade University. Mike Klingler's FREE membership site offers step-by-step, click-by-click, video tutorials on article marketing for network marketing.
About Mike Hutchins
Mike is part of the elite "Super Guides" program within Renegade University. Recently, he qualified as a personal coach to Renegade Professionals who want to "leapfrog" the learning curve, and build their businesses at "warp" speed! Mike has been making his living online since 2006.
Having had stellar success at building his own business, Mike was profiled in Ann Sieg's exciting report, "Role Models Of Attraction Marketing."
As an industry "scholar", Mike is a consultant to the investment community via the Gerson Lehrman Group of N.Y. City. He is also a Dale Carnegie course graduate.
You can learn more from Mike at his Network Marketing Leaders News.
Reader Comments (1)
Thanks Mike for straight forward advice to put into practice when article writing. It makes sense to visually keep articles readable with short paragraphs and a word limit. Developing catchy titles is a little bit of a talent of word crafters, but, with effort and diligence, we all can do that.
Good article.