Some Article Marketing Tips to Get You Started

I was recently speaking with my friend Dan Burke of Burke Services about the power of article marketing. Burke Services is a family-owned printing and direct mail company that offers exceptional one-on-one customer service (they printed my speaker sheets). But as you probably know, the printing industry has taken a hit in these economic times, and Dan wants to start taking advantage of article marketing to grow his customer base.

I offered Dan several tips and I thought I’d share them (and a few more) with you so you can take advantage of this powerful marketing tool.

First let me say that I am a HUGE proponent of article marketing. We distribute approximately 3 articles each week (I say “we” but in all honesty, the ever-so-wonderful Michelle handles all of it. She’s got the system down to a science and she’s super efficient. I guess I should have had her write this article!) Michelle keeps track of all of our stats, and we can trace a large number of website visitors and newsletter subscribers to articles that are published on other websites.

And while it’s true that article marketing is great for driving traffic, you can still utilize it even if you don’t have your website up and running yet. By distributing your articles off-line, you’ll begin to make a name for yourself in your local community or your specific niche.

Alright, let’s move on to the tips…

1. Do your keyword research.
Before you even start writing your article, do a bit of keyword research, since you want your article to be found in the search engines. But here’s a bit of a sticking point when it comes to article keywords. Long tail keywords are great for Google traffic, but “regular” keywords are better for getting found in the article directories. It’s kind of a catch 22, isn’t it?

Here’s my recommendation: when you’re first starting out in article marketing, use “regular” words. This will allow webmasters and newsletters publishers to find you easily. Once they get used to your name, your writing style, and the quality of your articles, they will start searching for you by Author’s Name. At that point, you can start going longtail. (It’s similar to the “know like trust” principal in marketing.)

2. Use your keywords.
No, I’m not being sarcastic here. I’ve consulted with a lot of entrepreneurs who thought a web page or an article or a PPC ad was optimized for a specific word when in fact, it was not at all. The biggest reason is that they weren’t sure what to do with the keywords once they found them. You want to put your keywords in your article title, as close to the beginning of the title as possible (just like you do for a web page). You want your words to appear as close to the beginning of your first paragraph as possible and repeat it one time in your first paragraph. And you want it to appear one time in each of your following paragraphs, as long as you can do it naturally. The thing with article marketing is that publishers don’t have to pick up your article. If it sounds forced or mechanical or “sales pitchy” it won’t get published. So quality is more important than keyword-quantity.

3. Publish the article yourself first.
This is another huge step that many entrepreneurs forget. It’s natural to get so excited about a great new article you just wrote that you want to spread it all over the place and start distributing it right away. But wait! Give your own readers first dibs (and take advantage of all your hard work and effort!) Publish the article in your own newsletter and on your own blog first, and then start distributing it elsewhere. Michelle generally distributes our articles a week or so after they’ve been published in our own newsletter. (So you can start looking for this article on the web in about 2 weeks.)

I’ve had some clients express a concern over duplicate content if they publish their articles on their blog and also to article directories. But actually, the duplicate content penalty comes about when you place the same content on your own site multiple times. So you don’t need to worry about publishing your articles and then distributing them elsewhere.

And here’s one more quick tip regarding duplicate content – a mistake I actually made myself! If you’re publishing your articles in your newsletter and in your blog, head this warning: If you’re publishing an HTML version of your newsletter you should always include an online version (if you’re reading the HTML version you’ll see a link at the top of this newsletter that says “read online”). Be sure to disallow your newsletter directory in your robots text file.

When I moved the Modern Image site to a new server a few months ago, I forgot to update the robots file. And since we were publishing our articles to the blog and they also appeared in the online version of our newsletters, we got slapped with a duplicate content penalty. And ouch! Did it ever hurt!! (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, just mention this tip to your webmaster and she’ll know exactly what you mean. And she’ll probably have a good chuckle at my expense!)

4. Create a great author’s bio box.
Your author’s bio box is the only place you get to “sell” your business so you want it to be very powerful. We have several different bios for different applications, and Michelle switches them out accordingly. (The more I write this, the more I’m wondering, How would I ever live without Michelle?!) Make sure your bio box (also known as a resource box) is benefits-rich and compelling. For more information on creating a great bio box, refer to this article…

5. Distribute the article online.
Even if you don’t have a website yet, I still suggest you publish your article online. You’ll be setting yourself up as an expert so you’ll have “instant status” when your site does go live. Plus, you’ll then be able to add those articles to your website, so you’ll have instant content.

There are a ton of article distribution sources out there, but personally we use only 2. (Actually, I take that back. Michelle also distributes our articles to a few specialty niche sites. But for beginning purposes, I have 2 recommendations.)

I recommend you publish your articles to EzineArticle.com because they are the most widely known article directory. It’s easy to create an account, just click the “Join Now” button in the top right corner. Be sure to read all of the editorial guidelines and agreements.

The downside to Ezine Articles is that they only deposit your articles; they do not actively distribute them. A webmaster or newsletter publisher would have to come to the Ezine Articles site and actually search for your article in order to publish it.

To get our articles distributed to other publishers, we use Content Crooner. This is not a free service, but what Michelle saves in time makes it ten times more than worth it. Basically, Michelle logs into our Content Crooner account, uploads our new article, chooses a category, adds the keywords and submits the article. Article Marketer then sends our article out to webmasters and newsletter publishers looking for articles in that category.

Content Crooner currently distributes to over 3,000 publishers – I don’t even want to think about how long it would take Michelle to send our article to 3,000 sources! Much more than the $10 a month we spend with Content Crooner.

(Now let me throw in a bit or mental feng shui here… as an entrepreneur, your time is your most valuable asset. And you will never grow your business until you come to grips with that fact! You can always make more money, you can never make more time!)

6. Distribute your article off line.
Article marketing isn’t just for the web. Once you have your article written, be sure to send it to off line sources as well. There are tons of local and niche publications that craving high quality content. Just make sure your article can’t come off as a sales pitch in anyway.

Now, go find some more clients!

I’m looking forward to watching your business grow !

You might also be interested in:

• There Is No Such Thing as a Duplicate Content Penalty
• How To Fast Track Your Article Marketing Program: Deadly Sins For An HTML Resource Box
• Web Site Traffic – Driving Visitors to your Blog
• Driving Traffic to Your WordPress Site
• Google News: 8 Easy Tips for Getting Your News Crawled

This entry was posted on Monday, August 3rd, 2009 at 9:37 am and is filed under Small Business Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.