Article Marketing - how to make it work for you

Cracking The Article Marketing Puzzle
Copyright (c) 2010 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com/

Article marketing is one of those topics that always seems to
generate a lot of conversation in forums and marketing
discussions... Online marketers are generally split into three
camps, when it comes to arguing the effectiveness of article
marketing as a promotional method...

Camp One swears by article marketing, as an integral and
essential part of their online marketing activities... They
suggest that the benefits of article marketing are twofold:
direct click-through (CTR) traffic from the article that may
deliver immediate sales; and improved search rankings that will
drive additional search traffic...

Camp Two insists that the only real value of article marketing is
for building links and creating link popularity for a website,
enabling the website to rank well in Google and other search
engines...

Camp Three accuses the first two camps of telling stories and
selling a sham...

I am in the first camp... I have made a lot of money online, in
the last 10 years, because I use article marketing to promote ALL
of my websites...

Some people insist that I have only made money online, because I
sell article marketing services... But, the truth is that I have
made a lot of money in a variety of niches that are "not
related" to online marketing... And, I have made that money in
those niches, because I have used article marketing as the
primary promotion method for all of my niche websites too...

Measuring The Success Of An Article Marketing Campaign

Those folks in Camp Two measure the success of their article
marketing campaigns by the number of back links and Google page
one search results that they can achieve...

Those of us, who are in camp One, measure our success by the
dollar value of the sales that an individual article can deliver
to our businesses... We count our search engine traffic to be
only a BONUS benefit of article marketing...

There are four reasons why Camp One should make more sense...

1. Direct click-through traffic from articles is often from
people who are pre-qualified to purchase what we are selling...
In turn, this ensures a better conversion-rate on the traffic
that we do receive directly from an article...

2. While search engine traffic is good, the people finding our
websites in the search engines are not always as strongly
targeted, nor pre-qualified to purchase what we are selling...

3. There can only be 10 websites on page one of Google and the
other search engines... Depending on how competitive a niche may
be, it could take weeks or years to reach page one of Google for
your targeted keywords... It could take a single article, with
its links to your website, or it could take 500 articles to get
your website to page one...

4. If you can get direct click-through traffic to your websites,
from your articles, you stand a good chance of generating sales
at your website -- NOW, instead of later...

In Camp One, we utilize article marketing to generate actual
sales, rather than search engine rankings...

We understand that "a bird in hand is more valuable than two in
the bush", and in other words, "a dollar in hand is more
valuable than a page-one listing in Google..."

The beauty of putting sales ahead of search engine rankings is
that we can make money today, rather than to have to pray for
good search engine rankings, so that we might be able to make
money tomorrow...

Where Do You Want Your Articles To Take You?

The success that you will achieve with your articles will be
determined before you put your very first word into your favorite
word processing software...

What are you trying to achieve with your articles?

This is very important, because your goals will determine your
outcome...

Article marketers in Camp One seek to write articles that will
appeal to their target audience... Every word that they put into
an article is designed to appeal to its human audience...

Article marketers in Camp Two are only interested in getting back
links...

It really is that simple...

Are you writing your articles for a human audience, or are you
writing your articles for the search engines?

If you are only concerned with getting the back link, then that
is all you will receive...

However, if you are concerned with getting the attention of the
people most likely to buy your products and services, then that
is what you will more likely receive, and you may even discover
that you are getting attention from the search engines as well...

Sharing A Secret

I am going to share a secret with you right here and now...

Search engines value articles that have managed to attract their
own inbound links...

In other words, the articles of yours that are published on
third-party websites that will send real link popularity to your
website are those articles that other people have deemed valuable
enough to link from their own websites...

People do not link to junk, unless they are paid to do so...

If people do not link to your articles on third-party websites,
you should not be surprised if Google and the other search
engines do not value the links that you have pointing to your
website from your articles...

So, if you want your articles to pass real link popularity to
your website, then you need to write your articles in such a way
that other people will find value in them and want to link to
them...

This is the primary reason why so many people fail with article
marketing... They write crap, then get mad when they get crap
results...

People who leave Camp One for Camp Two, then leap to Camp Three
are people who have never attempted to follow any of the article
marketing principles, described in this article...

Opening The Door To Article Marketing Success

There are many online publishers who will share your target
audience with you...

When your articles focus on the wants and needs of people in your
target audience, it will also appeal to the publisher who has an
audience you want to reach...

There are five essential steps to creating articles that will
produce good results for your business...

Step One: Write an article that people in your target audience
will want to read...

Step Two: Make sure that your article carries a title that will
get your article opened... No matter how good your article is,
publishers and readers make the decision to read your article, in
less than 10 seconds, using your article title to determine if
your article might be worth the time they will sacrifice to read
it...

Step Three: Make sure that the article is good enough to keep the
attention of your reader to its conclusion, so they will see your
Authors' Resource Box at the end of the article...

Step Four: Construct your Authors' Resource Box with the goal of
getting the reader to your website, where you can make a
comprehensive case for your offer...

Step Five: Distribute articles to the online publishers, who are
most likely to publish them...

There is an art and a science to developing articles that will
produce the desired results for your business...

The science is understanding what is required to make your
articles attractive to readers and publishers...

The art of article marketing is being able to put an article
together in such a way that people actually want to read it and
are thankful for having read it...

Final Thoughts...

It may be easier to write articles only for the search engines...
Impressing the search engines can be as easy as impressing my
three-year-old... "I'm gonna eat your ear..."

But if you are willing to invest a few more minutes to make sure
your article will appeal to publishers and readers too, you might
just find that article marketing has a value beyond the search
engines... And in my book, that spells M-o-r-e R-e-v-e-n-u-e...

p.s. If you liked this article, please give it value by linking
to it...

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Written by Bill Platt. Also get his free article marketing ebook:
http://thePhantomWriters.com/ebooks/advanced-article-marketing.html

Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Search Engine