How to Drive Traffic & Sales with Article Marketing

Article marketing is one of my favourite ways of establishing my brand, building my subscriber list and driving sales. It is the most efficient low cost, no cost way to promote yourself or your business.

It is the quickest and most cost effective way to drive traffic to your website and blog. More than that, it allows you to have permanent links spread across the internet pointing back to your site.

Here are some of the rules to get the best from your articles:

Keywords – before you write, do some keyword research to optimise your article. There are some great free tools like https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

Use your keyword in your headline, first and last paragraphs. The Important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site.

Headlines – use a compelling headline or title that will encourage your readers to take the time to read the article. I use a great tool http://www.headlinecreator.co.uk

Content - Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.

People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic as more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.

Promotional Opportunities – maximise on the promotional opportunities. Part of the benefits of article marketing is getting picked up by publishers with a large number of audiences and gaining the ability of leveraging other brands because of the quality of your work.

I see articles as the perfect sales and promotional tool. By educating your readers, you establish yourself as an expert in your field and the business will follow.

Make it interesting - Use short paragraphs and make use of numbers or bullets as well as stories. The article must be client focussed and they must see value in reading it.

Conclusion – end with a conclusion summarising the article and remember to proofread and correct any mistakes.

Resource box – have a great resource box which includes your contact details and your website link. Take a look at my resource box at the end of this article.

Article life cycle – I follow a system with every article I write:

1 – The first place my article goes onto is my website. I want Google to find my article on my website before anywhere else on the internet

2 – Blog – the second place I put my article is on my blog. I normally make a quick video relating to the article, submit it to YouTube and insert the video in the middle of the blog. I then use http://pingomatic.com to share my blog with all the blog directories (free...)

3 – The third thing I do is to submit my articles to over 100 article directories using a piece of software http://www.articlesubmittingsoftware.com/ which makes the process of submitting quick and easy. I immediately have 100 links back to my website.

Alternatively you can manually submit your article to the directories. The top five are:
www.ezinearticles.com
www.articlebase.com
www.buzzle.com
www.goarticles.com
www.helium.com

4 – The fourth thing I do is submit my articles to the local press. In the past this has resulted in me having my own column in an international publication which was part of the Financial Times and distributed to 40 countries.

5 – The fifth thing I do is to find magazines where my article could be a good fit and submit them to the editor. This has resulted in my articles being published in numerous magazines all over the world. As I have said, the best form of low cost, no cost marketing.

6 – Promotion – my last step is to publicise the article to my subscriber list and through my various social media accounts. One easy website to do all of this quickly is www.ping.fm

Now it’s up to you, start spreading the message and watch the traffic and sales follow.

Frank Furness CSP CFP TOT is a professional speaker and author specialising in sales and technology. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 48 countries. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com For resources take a look at
http://www.frankfurness.com
http://www.frankfurnessresources.com
http://www.productivitycentre.com

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