What is the purpose of writing articles?

What is the purpose of writing articles?

The purpose of writing articles is first and foremost to educate people, to give something of value to the reader, to pass your knowledge or expertise of a particular subject onto others.

Within the internet marketing industry and in fact many other industries, it can be a lucrative way of driving traffic to your website and the other real beauty is it is FREE.  What I love about Ezine Articles is that writing just one article can mean a Google position on many different pages within your niche.  The added bonus is that once you have had your article published, it is out there sending traffic to you for many, many years to come.

Before writing – what is the purpose of your specific article?

Any good article author will tell you that you should always sit down before you write any article and determine what the purpose of that particular article is.  For example, if your intention is to rate in the Search Engines then you will need to use long tail keywords so your article will appear when people type that keyword into the Search Engine.

If you are writing an article to submit to a blog post or a niche related forum where your target  market hangs out, then you don’t even need to bother too much about keywords at all.  Your purpose on this occasion is not to appear on the Search Engine Results page but to offer something of value to your hungry audience.

Search Engine Ratings or Value to the Reader?

I have never written any article yet that has started with me aiming solely to get ratings in the search engines.  Instead what I have tried to do is to answer the questions that I sought answers to when I first came into internet marketing.  If during my many visits to the forums that are out there, I see a reoccurring question then I will do some research if necessary and attempt to write an article on that also.  Again this is about providing value rather than ratings.

Now this doesn’t mean that I totally ignore the Search Engines but just that I do not dwell on it so much.  The day I made the decision to no longer focus on keywords, keywords, and more keywords was the day I felt a huge burden lift from me.

There is also a lot of software out there that promises to take the ‘arduous’ task of writing articles away from you.  Some claim that you only need write one article and their software will spin it to make several more articles out of that one.

My question to you then is “what is your purpose of writing articles?”  “What are you attempting to achieve?”  I ask this because in my opinion, the fact that you have opted for an easy way out suggests that this is all about ‘you’ and ‘taking’ rather than ‘giving’ value to your readers first and foremost.

2 simple ways of getting free traffic

Are you just starting out in internet marketing and have a limited or no marketing budget?  If so, this article is written just for you.  There are numerous methods of free marketing out there but I have chosen 2 that I have, and continue to use to bring me free traffic.  So what are they?

Drop cards

These are just small business cards, well in so much they’re business card size but along the top they have a heading (your business opportunity) and underneath this a URL.  Some examples of headings could be ‘tired of trading time for money?’ or ‘this proven business could bring you an extra $10,000 each month’ or ‘Do you want to work from home?’

Drop Flyers

Exact same concept as the cards but written on an A5 size paper.  This allows you further opportunity to expand on the headings you used in the drop cards and use further questions similar to you have on your card but a lot more of them.  You could also include what is termed ‘a call to action’ i.e. visit this website to download FREE marketing coaching videos or refer to an eBook you may have purchased and want to give to your prospects (visitors).

Where to promote

The list is endless as to where you could promote your cards or flyers.  Some places that readily spring to mind are:

• The Mall                               Coffee Shops                                     Seminars
• Health Clubs                       Salons                                                 Windshields
• Colleges                               Neighbourhood                               Gas Stations
• Bowling                               Dance classes                                    Churches

These 2 methods go totally against all the other free advertising methods that others talk about online.  This is back to the grass roots of marketing.  Before the internet came out, this was how people advertised; there wasn’t the luxury of social networking sites, internet forums, ezines you could submit articles to.   At work you could drop them around different work areas, lunch rooms or anywhere you think people may venture into and could by chance stumble across your drop card or flyer.

For example, if you were putting a drop flyer in your local Mall, you may want to have a heading like ‘do you want to make some more money so you can buy some more clothes?’ or something along those lines.  Try and make your flyer relevant to where you’re promoting.

Promoting on windshields is an effective method I used.  I paid some young adults $10 each and they placed flyers on every windshield in the parking lot of a number of large shopping complexes.  As a disclaimer here, I agreed with their parents beforehand and I transported them around.

Bandit signs are another good way of promotion.  This is the signs you often see when sitting at a stop light and there is a sign stuck in the ground somewhere often displaying some form of political message.  You could put up one of those with your website and a call to action.   You can get all sorts of signs like these made for free or for a very low fee.  If you go onto Google and type in vista print there are a number of sites that will come up promoting many free advertising banners etc.

Want to learn more about how to market online, lots of coaching and guidance to quickly get you set up and in profit.  Just visit my site at http://www.WealthyIncome4U.com.  Once there you will have access to a FREE set of 5 videos that show you how I and many others in this business are making great sustainable incomes.

Writing articles – why should this be a strategy adopted by internet marketers?

When I first started in internet marketing within my home business, I was informed by my mentor over and over that ‘content is king’ and that article marketing is one of the main strategies you must adopt.  You must aim to submit 2-3 articles per week I was told.

I just couldn’t really work this out and despite her best efforts to educate me about lead generation, back links etc; it might just as well have been someone speaking a foreign language for the little I understood.  In fact, the online business world has its own unique language and believe me it took some learning, and still does!

I did as instructed and duly started to submit articles, reading up as much as I could and it was only when I started to see results, i.e. people visiting my site after reading my articles that it started to make some sense.

Why is it such an effective strategy?

The main 2 article submission sites that I would suggest are Ezinearticle.com and Go Articles.com.

All those involved in internet marketing know the money is in the list; but you have to generate that traffic first before you can make any money.  Article marketing is a great free way of doing that.  Once you article has been published, you sort of forget about it but it is out there and highly visible for anyone to see who happens to either search on the relevant keywords contained within it, or just stumbles across it by chance.  It can continue to generate traffic for you ad infinitum.

By submitting your articles to these sites you can get traffic in 3 ways:

1. Simply by your article being published by one or both of these article submission sites.
2. Your article, or parts of it being picked up by and Ezine publisher and you will see their link at the top right of the Ezine Articles homepage.  A publisher is someone who owns a website and/or they own a newsletter and they may want to publish your article within their site or publication.  Whatever they choose to do with your article, it’s going to have your signature file at the bottom.  At the end of every single article you write is your signature file.  Anyone using your article has to include your signature block for compliance purposes.
3. Your article gets indexed in the search engines.  So how do you do this?  Well it basically all comes down to keyword research.  One of the main ways you target marketing is by targeting keywords.  The entire search engines are based on keywords.  It’s really important that you find and select the right keywords to use in your marketing.  Some of the things that can help are software tools.  My favourite free keyword software site is nichebotclassic.com and it is so simple to use.  You just type in the keyword(s) you plan on using and it will bring up the number of daily searches on that keyword from the 3 main search engines.

Summary

Make sure your articles are easy to read, give value on your subject so readers are intrigued and want to find out more about your business so click on your signature file.  You don’t have to write a masterpiece, you just want to generate enough interest that they click on your link at the bottom.

Sit down and write 5 articles at a time, keep them in the same category; your chances then increase of them all appearing in the lists your will see at the bottom of the Ezine pages also.  What you’re doing here is increasing the traffic back to your site.  If your content is good, this will increase the likelihood of a publisher picking up on it so that’s 2 main strategies to adopt in article marketing.

Long term leverage

The aim for long term leverage is to get your articles ranked in the search engines.  This means that long after you’ve forgotten what you’ve written, those articles are up there and driving traffic to your site.

Article Marketing – some ideas to get you going in your online business

When we were young infants at school, our teachers constantly asked us to write stories, particularly on a Monday morning when the teacher would ask us to write about our weekend and what we’d been up to.  Most children are happy to do this; they love to talk about themselves, their families, their pets and fun things they did.  Now I’m sure there was much hilarity in the staff room as teachers regaled each other with stories about little Jonny and his escapades at the weekend.  Many parents squirmed in their chairs at parents’ evenings when little Jonny’s storybook was handed to them to read.  You see, children have no preconceptions, they don’t think before they speak or write.

As adults we frequently consider what others may think about things we’ve said or written.  Somewhere we’ve lost that freedom, that creative and energising quality to just be who we are and not conform to what we believe society demands we are.

Starting off

I’m suggesting now, go back to your childhood.  You know the saying ‘dance like nobody’s watching?’ – Well write knowing you’ve got something really interesting that the world needs to know about.

Start with an outline – what do you want people to know?  This will guide you in creating an introduction, body and conclusion for your article.  What I always do is mind map, it’s a wonderful way to be as creative as you like, it uses both right and left side of the brains so applies both logic and creativity.  You can find lots of free software to do mind maps professionally but use the search engines to find out what mind maps are and how to start using them with just a piece of paper initially.

So you’ve came up with the theme for your article, now how are you going to write about it?  Consider your heading, it needs to immediately grab the reader and make them want to read on.  Here are some suggestions for starting your header off:

• Little known ways to…..
• Who else wants a…..
• The Secret of…….
• Get rid of that…….
• Here’s a quick way to…….
• Now you can……..
• What everybody ought to know about……….

Next step

• Jot down some phrases and sentences that you would like to use.
• Always consider, what would I like to know about this topic?
• How would it best help me?
• Who or what is my target audience?  This will ensure you write in a language that is easily understood by them.
• Do as much research on the topic as you can to ensure the information is current

Consider how your introduction will flow?  This is a couple of sentences drawing the reader in to what you are actually writing about.

Are you going to have on large paragraph on your topic or will you break it down into sub-headings?  This is best as one continuous flow of text can be off-putting for some people.  So consider what your sub-headings will be and what will be contained within each.  One or two paragraphs here is plenty.

Finally, how are you going to end your article?  What do you want to say in your final paragraphs that will encapsulate everything you’ve written about?  You may want to use some sort of analogy here linking in to something you or someone you know has experienced and the outcome of that.  You may consider giving a look forward to the reader, e.g. watch out for further articles where I will show you the many free ways to submit your articles.

And finally…..

In essence then, give yourself permission to write with a totally open mind, start with drafting an outline of your topic, jot down some notes on what you want to include, decide how you will lay it out, then just go for it.

And lastly, just heed this saying; I have no idea of the originator but it goes ‘If you make a choice that goes against what everyone else thinks, the world will not fall apart.’