Article Markeing Strategy – Create A Flood Of Traffic with Your Article Writing System
Article Marketing is one of the most powerful tools in our toolbox when it comes to generating tons of traffic to our websites. Yet we don’t always use it to its fullest potential. Let’s take me for example. I know perfectly well that this works. I used to write several articles a day and submit them to various article directories. It was the first thing I’d do every morning.
After a few months I slowed down on my writing and eventually stopped. I recently took a look at my EzineArticles.com account and realized that I had submitted 2 articles in the past 8 months (as my six-year-old would say – PATHETIC)
How did I go from submitting articles daily and enjoying a nice constant and constantly growing stream of traffic to more or less stopping altogether? I lost track of my article marketing strategy. I was still getting a nice stream of visitors through my past efforts, but to be brutally honest, I left a lot of money on the table by getting lazy and complacent and focusing on other stuff that seemed more interesting and fun.
What I needed was to create an article writing system for myself, a step-by-step process map. We’ll go over that system or process in just a minute.
I also thought this was a good time to hone my writing skills and I signed up for Jeff Herring’s Affiliate Marketing For Beginners. I’m glad I did. He’s lessons are not only excellent reminders, I’m also picking up quite a few new tips.Spending a little money on the course is a great motivator to take action and get some articles written and submitted.
Now Let’s Talk Article Marketing Strategy…
What Is Your Goal
What do you want to accomplish with article marketing? Are you getting your name out there and establishing yourself as an expert? Are you improving rankings for certain keywords on your site? Or are you writing articles that you want to rank high on the articles directories? How much traffic do you want to generate with this and where do you want the traffic? What action do you want your visitors to take once they get to your site?
Decide what your goals are with your article marketing campaign and set some metrics as well. You may want to start with a goal of writing and submitting 2 articles per week. If you’re ambitious, your goal may be 2 articles a day. Putting down a number will help you stay on target and make sure you are using articles in the most effective way possible.
Article Writing Schedule
Set aside some time each week to research and write the articles. On average it takes me about 30 minutes to research and write a 4oo to 500 word article. Your mileage may vary, but it shouldn’t take you more than an hour to write a decent article, research and submission included.
Brainstorm Topic Ideas
There’s nothing worse than sitting in front of a blank piece of paper – or in our case, a blank word document.
I like to set aside some time each week to brainstorm article topic ideas. I read through blogs and newsfeeds on my topic or market, or type my main keyword or keyphrase into the google keywords tool to generate ideas.
Other sources of inspiration are discussion forums, the Yahoo answer website (answer.yahoo.com) and browsing through related articles in one of the article databases.
Last but not least I look through the content I’ve written for my site and other articles I’ve written on the topic to see if there’s something I can expand on or rework into a new article.
I have a folder on my desktop with nothing but article ideas. Sometimes it’s just a word or two, at other times I may write an outline for a future articles or finish one of the paragraphs. Brainstorming new article ideas regularly ensures I never run out of topics to write about.
Keyword Research
Ideally we want our articles to rank well in the article directories and on the sites that pick them up. The more people read the article and make it to our author resource box, the more people will eventually end up at our website.
Plus if we rank well in the article directories the chances increase that our article will be picked up by another webmaster and published on his site.
Use your favorite keyword tool and do your homework. Here’s a post on how to pick a good keyword.
Article Writing Checklist
I work well with checklists. I have one made out just for writing articles that covers all the basics including picking a good keyword or keyphrase, writing a good title, jotting down an outline, filling in the content and ending with a good resource box with a strong call to action.
Here’s my Article Writing Checklist (pdf). Feel free to use it.
The Writing
With all of the steps above taken care of, it shouldn’t take you very long to write the actual article. Keep your article checklist close by and make sure you are covering each point. In short, just sit down and write them.
I tend to do my best writing very early in the morning or late at night. Since I can’t always count on having enough energy at the end of the day to get work done at all, I do my writing in the morning. Listen to yourself and figure out when your most creative and productive time of day is. Do your best to schedule your article writing during that time period.
Submitting Your Articles
Once your article is written, submit it to one of your favorite article directories. To get plenty of unique content out there, I submit each article to just one article directory. Most of my articles are submitted to Ezinearticles.com because I seem to get the best results from it.
Patience
Now comes the hardest part… it takes a little patience and faith before you will see a huge return on your investment in time. Of course you will see an immediate increase in traffic from the article directories as your articles appear on the main page an fairly high on the various category pages. If you’re lucky someone will also pick up your article and run it in their ezine or add it to their blog or website.
But the true results come in later. It takes a little time for your article to rank well in the search engines. But once it does (provided you’ve done your homework and picked a good keyphrase), you should see two things happen
- You’ll see a stead stream of traffic from the article itself as people search for the keyword or keyphrase you optimized your article for and end up on your website after clicking your link in the article resource box.
- You will also see your own pages that you linked to in your article move up in the search engines for your keyphrase resulting in even more traffic.
By writing articles consistently, you are constantly building new little streams of traffic to your site that will quickly combine into a flood of traffic for your website. Take a few minutes to sit down and develop your own article marketing strategy and then stick to it. I know I’m planning on doing just that now that I’ve rediscovered it.
P.S. I’m working on post reviewing some of my favorite article directories. Look for it in the coming days.
You may also like to read:
- 30 Minute Article Writing System – How To Write And Submit An Article In Under Half An Hour
- Article Writing Tips From Connie Green
- Writing An Article A Day – Tips To Actually Get It Done
- Internet Article Writing – 5th HAHD Challenge
- Article Marketing Tips – 3 Important Things To Avoid When Your Writing Articles
Tags: article marketing, article marketing strategy, article writing, article writing system, article writing systems
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A very timely post for me, Susanne. Why in the world do we stop doing it when it attracts so many visitors to our sites? I am currently guilty of not submitting articles. I need to get back into article marketing and you give some great advice here. Thanks for the inspiration! I now have article marketing on my “to do” each day this week :)