by Mark Daoust
Internet marketing journals are filled with articles proclaiming the
immense benefits of article writing. From page rank boosting and
traffic generation, to establishing trust and credibility, the
benefits of becoming a published author should be well known to you
now. If you are not writing articles, then you are simply missing out
on one of the easiest and most effective ways of making your website
a success.
Because article writing has been written about so much, many new
writers have opened up their word processors and began typing away to
harness this powerful tool. However, many of these new authors are
seeing little to no success. Their articles are not getting
published, and the articles that do get published do not see any
traffic.
The problem is that most website owners do not know how to write to
get published. They write to advertise their business, or to simply
get their presence known. This simply does not work.
Article writing can be one of two things: it can be an immensely
beneficial activity for your business, or it can be an immensely time
consuming task that bears few results. Obviously, you want your
article writing to be the immensely beneficial activity. This article
will explore the basic do’s and don’ts of getting your article
published, and in turn, getting those coveted benefits.
Never, Never Include Your Business
When writing your article, keep in mind that the less you try and
push your website, the more people will be likely to visit your site.
More importantly, those who do visit your website will be highly
targeted prospects for your site. People do not like to be sold or to
listen to sales pitches. If a person knows they are in a sales pitch,
their first reaction will be to get out of that situation as quickly
as possible.
Articles have the great ability to make your website known without
the reader experiencing a sales pitch. They establish trust by
focusing on details that does not require the reader to give up any
of their own information or money. Once that trust is established,
entering into a sales pitch is not such a bad of an experience.
The number one mistake that website owners make when writing articles
is to use the article to advertise their website. This is a
guaranteed way of being published in only the journals that do not
screen their articles (and in turn probably do not have a lot of
traffic). You may not think you are advertising your site, but there
are several things publishers look for in articles that they may
constitute as advertising.
The Blatant Advertisement
This is when you write an article and include a section that reads
something like this: “For more information on this subject, visit my
website http://www.yoursite.com”. Asking visitors to visit your
website is perfectly fine, just not within the body of the article
itself.
The Link to a Free Tool
Many articles offer links to free tools to enforce a point that the
article was trying to make. Some articles only intention is to report
a collection of tools that webmasters can use for a specific purpose.
These articles are generally very good and very useful.
However, you should never provide a link to a tool on your website.
Readers have grown tired of articles that do nothing to help them and
everything to help the person who wrote the article. They have grown
savvy to author’s attempts to advertise their website through the use
of articles. As a result, if an article contains a link to the
author’s website as a resource for the topic they are writing about,
it immediately raises suspicions.
Advertising a Website that You Don’t Admit to Owning
This is a classic technique by some authors to advertise their
website for free. They write an article that recommends a website
that they own, however, they never mention that they actually own the
website being recommended. They may recommend the website as a good
resource, a great tool, or a quality service, but never mention that
they have an interest in that website.
Although some publishers will not pick up on this, it is dishonest in
its attempt. An author who does this appears to be offering an
unbiased opinion on a resource when in fact there are anything but
unbiased. If a reader finds out that they were recommended a website
on the assumption that the recommendation came from an unbiased
source, not only will they not trust your service, they will not
trust the publishing source.
Using Your Website as an Example
This is probably the most common source of advertising through
articles. An author who is writing about an issue may decide that
using an active website is important as an example. Naturally they
choose to use their own URL. This is generally not accepted as proper
article writing etiquette.
If you need to use a URL as an example, use the common
http://www.domain.com, or use another resource that you do not have a
personal interest in. By refusing to promote your own website within
the article, you will actually be doing more good for yourself than
bad.
Avoid Two Part Articles
Some articles are so broad in their scope that they cannot be covered
in a single article. If you write an article like this, you should
provide the publisher with each part of the article and allow the
publisher to link to the various parts.
Some authors include a section which reads “This is the second part
of a two part article. To read the first part, please goto
http://www.mydomain.com/article.html”. Many publishers will not
publish this style of an article if they are not able to carry both
parts of the article and keep the links internal. After all, a
publisher publishes articles to become known as a resource. If they
have to recommend their readers go to another website for the basic
information they need, publishing the article becomes counter-
effective.
Make Formatting Easy
Publishers read hundreds of articles sifting through the vast number
of submissions for the best articles. The last thing a publisher
wants to do is spend time formatting an article. With most articles,
this is not a problem.
Define Sections of Your Articles
Using section headlines makes splitting up an article much easier for
a publisher and also makes your article more readable. As an example,
the text you are reading right now is under the section “Make
Formatting Easy” and the subsection “Define Sections of Your
Articles”. Defining various sections of your articles will make
formatting articles very easy for any interested publisher.
Watch Out for HTML
Articles that include various programming code, such as CSS, HTML,
JavaScript, PHP, ASP, or similar code, can be difficult to
incorporate into an article website. Most publishers should have
programs that convert the code automatically to escaped code which
will avoid any problems. You should check with the publisher first to
find out their desired format, though, if you have a lot of code
throughout your article.
You should also never submit your article as an HTML formatted
article unless the publisher specifically states that they accept
HTML formatted articles. Most publishers will not even bother to read
the content of an article that is formatted with HTML tags.
Avoid Tabs and Word Processing Formatting
When writing your article, use as little formatting as possible.
Avoid using tabs as they do not translate to the Internet very well.
Assume that the publisher is going to receive your article in a plain
text format. Therefore, do not bother with adding bold text, italic
text, etc. unless the publisher gives you tools to do so.
Articles that use strange characters and tabs may present too much of
a formatting challenge for the publisher.
Write Articles That Can Stand By Themselves
Publishers are looking for the same thing that readers are looking
for, high quality, well-written articles. An article that offers just
a few tidbits of information or acts as a teaser to tempt the reader
to visit your website is not an article that anyone really wants to
read.
An amazing thing happens when you write an article that contains
quality content and is well-written. Not only will you get published,
but by not wasting your reader’s time with your attempts to advertise
your own website, you will actually improve your credibility and
trustworthiness to your readers. You will become recognized as an
expert in the field you are writing about. People will be more likely
to visit your website as you are the source of the information that
you are writing about.
A good article should be able to stand by itself. A reader should be
able to read your article and walk away having gained something
substantial from reading the article alone.
Using the Resource Box
The resource box is your time to tell the reader about yourself and
to finally advertise your website. This is where all the benefits of
writing articles comes to fruition. If the reader likes your article,
they will visit your website, that is, if the resource box is written
correctly.
The resource box should be short, to the point, and never include
more than 3 links. The resource box is your opportunity to tell the
reader who you are and where they can go to learn more from you. If
you are brief and to the point, your resource box will quickly become
your biggest source of traffic.
Some writers try to insert as much information into their resource
box as possible. The problem with this is that readers are not
interested in reading a long biography of the author, or reading
several lines of text advertising the author’s site. At most, the
reader will be interested in knowing who wrote the article and where
they can go to learn more about the author and the author’s business.
Conclusion: Think of the Readers
If you want to get your articles published, you need to give
publishers what they want. That just happens to be the same thing
that readers want: quality content without a sales pitch. When
writing your article, keep your readers in mind. Do not think of them
as prospects, and do not think of your article as an ad copy. Think
of your article as your opportunity to prove to hundreds of thousands
of readers just how much of an expert you really are.
An amazing thing will happen when you give readers and publishers
what they want. You will find yourself published on websites you
never knew existed, you will find your articles discussed in forums,
and you will find that people will look to you and your business as a
trustworthy enterprise. Those benefits of article writing will be
sitting in your lap.
About the Author:
Mark Daoust is the owner of Site Reference. Site Reference accepts high quality article submissions. To submit your articles on Internet Marketing, Website Development, or Search Engines, goto http://www.site-reference.com/submit.php
