Balancing SEO Against The Needs of Your Article’s Audience
Copyright (c) 2008-2009 Hunter Waterhouse
Reprint Writers
http://www.reprintwriters.com

Article marketing continues to be a proven method for generating
traffic to our websites and developing good search placement,
even after all of these years. I have been reading articles
online since 1995, and I continue to read a few dozen articles
per week on subjects that are dear to my heart.

Some Claim That Article Marketing Does Not Work

Now and again, I will read a thread in a forum somewhere where
somebody claims that article marketing does not work.

Some article-marketing critics will admit that they have only
distributed only one or two articles. Well yeah, I can see why
article marketing did not work for them – because they did not
work at making article marketing profitable for them.

Article marketing is like any other method of advertising. If you
don’t make a real investment in it, then you cannot reap great
rewards from it.

The Marketing Rule Of Seven

Advertising professionals speak of the “Marketing Rule Of
Seven,” which suggests that a consumer must see your marketing
message at least seven times before they start to pay attention
to your message. The pros also suggest that once seven exposures
have been achieved, the consumer will make a subtle, subconscious
connection to the advertiser. Recognition brings rewards, in that
after seven exposures to an advertisement, consumers will start
to feel as if they know enough about the advertiser to trust
their sales message.

If television, radio and print advertisers understand that a
company’s sales message must be seen or heard at least seven
times, then why would you – the Internet marketer – think that
you can write a single article and see the full benefit of the
medium?

Successful Article Marketing Requires A Commitment To The Reader

All commerce on the Internet is driven by information, such as
written sales messages and information about products and
services. Some websites also benefit from generic information
concerning topics that their potential clients will be interested
in reading. For example, if a website sells plumbing supplies,
the consumer may find the availability of information about how
to remove the old fittings and how to install the new plumbing
equipment, as an essential element of their purchase decision.

Article marketing when done correctly will not be a boring,
blathering of search engine optimized keywords related to a
product or service line.

Article marketing, when done well, will provide information that
will be of real interest to the person most likely to buy what
you are selling.

For example:

* If you are selling auction services, give the reader tips to
help them make more money from the sale of their goods in the
auction environment or how a buyer can find a good deal.

* If you are selling auto warranties, tell the reader how to
uncover the best value in an auto warranty plan and what features
to seek.

* If you are selling resume services, give the reader advice on
how to write their own resume.

Article marketing when used well can help a company establish
itself as an expert in the field, and it can help show a reader
why hiring the author’s service might be better than a
do-it-yourself project. As an example, with the resume advice
article, once the reader sees how comprehensive your knowledge is
and how detailed a resume should be, the reader may just decide
that using your resume writing service will be much more
productive than the do-it-yourself resume.

Just Like Lawyers, Writers Specialize Too

Beyond the cost of labor, content development is usually the
second most expensive expenditure made by the online vendor. It
is important to note that just as there are lawyers who
specialize in one area of law, there are also ghostwriters who
specialize in certain types of content creation.

People who write sales copy are referred to as “copywriters.“
Copywriters are people who understand the nuances of how to make
people buy what you are selling.

They understand that replacing a single word in the sales copy
could mean the difference between lukewarm sales numbers and
red-hot sales numbers, and they know which words to change.

Some professional copywriters have a proven track record of
writing sales copy that has generated millions of dollars in
sales – people such as Frank Kern, Dan Lok, and Joe Vitale. These
guys know the value of their copywriting skills, and they charge
accordingly. If you ask them to write sales copy for you, don’t
be surprised when they quote you a price in the range of $5-20
per written word.

Other writers might specialize in writing books, brochures, and
articles. Some writers specialize in the smaller word counts,
like the folks who write greeting cards and book jackets.

Finding The Best Writer For Your Needs

The kid down the street who writes part-time for the newspaper
may or may not be the best person to write your online articles
for you. One reason is that people who write for offline
publications seldom appreciate the importance of keywords in an
article for search engine marketing purposes.

Note this article for example. Our purpose is to show you how you
can use article marketing as a successful marketing tool for your
business. We also want to show how the articles should appeal
both to the reader and the search engine algorithms.

With these thoughts in mind, when you are finished reading this
article, read it a second time to see how many variations on the
following SEO keyword phrases can be found in this article:
article marketing, search engine marketing, keywords,
advertising, content creation, writers and copywriting. Of
course, copywriting is not the kind of writing we do, but people
who do not understand the specialization of writing skills might
type “copywriting” or “copywriters” into their favorite
search engine to find someone who writes informational articles.

One never knows precisely what the public will use as their
search keywords when they go to the search engine to find
information. That is the very reason why a good online article
writer must strive to showcase a range of similar keywords within
the context of an article.

Your Article Marketing Strategies Influence Your Overall Success

We know that some people tell you that the only reason to write
an article is to get a link back to your website. What most of
these people don’t tell you is that most websites that accept
reprint articles do so, only after a human has reviewed or at
least scanned the article.

An article that does not read well will never be published on a
top-tier website. Yes, some websites may accept a poorly written
article, but more sites will only accept well-written articles.

A reader who is not impressed with your article will seldom reach
your resource box, so the link back in the resource box can only
give value to your website from the search engines – maybe. The
search engines generally only give value to articles on good
websites or those placements that have lots of links pointing to
the article within the website. Bad articles don’t get published
on good websites, and they do not attract links.

As the Marketing Rule Of Seven should indicate, multiple articles
generate a long-term wave of new links and potential visitors to
your website.

Consistency is also important to a successful article marketing
campaign, in that releasing weekly articles will enable your
readers to see your marketing message regularly.

Finally, the smart use of a variety of related keyword phrases
will strengthen the ability of your article to appeal to the
search engines and the people who use them.

If you can balance the needs of your article’s audience against
your need for search optimized content, then you can benefit
handsomely from your article marketing campaigns.

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Hunter Waterhouse has been ghost writing and building websites
on the Internet for a number of years. Over the years, Hunter
has been employed by http://www.thephantomwriters.com/ To learn
about the new WordPress plugin, which will enable you to receive
targeted articles directly from The Phantom Writers Article
Distribution Service, as they become available, please visit:
http://www.backlinksmagnet.com/blog/