5 Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing

5 Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing
Copyright (c) 2010 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com/

If you want to understand how to be successful online, study
those who are already successful, and gain an understanding of
“what they do” and “why they do what they do…” Then mirror
their actions…

I have been very successful using Article Marketing to promote my
online businesses, since early 2000…

I have written and distributed many articles that went on to
generate sales in the five figures… But for the sake of the
FTC, “Very few people will make this kind of money with Article
Marketing…”

If you understand the “how and why” of writing great articles,
perhaps you can generate more sales from your articles than I
have from mine… But if you miss the point of this article, you
are likely to never make any money at all with article
marketing…

There Are Five Essential Elements of Successful Article
Marketing:

1. Title – Many people suggest that you should put your top
keywords at the front of your article title, but I don’t
subscribe to that methodology. I do include my target keywords in
the title, when I can, but an article that is well-optimized for
the search engines is worthless if it does not get published…
The #1 goal of your articles’ title is to get the article
opened!! You must present a title that is going to get the
attention of publishers and readers; you must present a title
that is going to compel a person to at least open your article to
see if they will want to read it…

2. Opening Paragraph – The title got your article opened, but now
you need your reader to read the article… Tell your reader why
they should keep reading your article and read it to its
conclusion… Any reader who does not reach your website from
your article is a “missed opportunity” to sell your stuff…
Show people why it will be in their best interest to finish
reading your article…

3. The Article Body – The article body must meet the promise of
the Article Title and the opening paragraph… The article body
must retain the interest of the reader to the last word… The
article body must tell a story people want to read, and leave
them wanting more… The article body must successfully carry the
reader to your Author’s Resource Box… When finished reading,
the reader must be happy to have read the article…

4. The Authors’ Resource Box – The Authors’ Resource Box needs
to transition the reader from your article to your website, by
offering a compelling call-to-action to get the reader to go to
your website… Tell who you are, but don’t go overboard…
People do not care who you are – they only care about what else
you can do for them… Jeff Herring wrote a great article that
elaborates a bit further on how to construct an effective
Resource Box here (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=3624961)

5. Your Landing Page – You should never try to sell your products
or services in your Authors’ Resource Box. Instead, you should
try to get the reader to your website, where you have an
unlimited number of words, videos, pictures and testimonials to
tell the real story of your products or services. Few vendors
have the ability to sell a product or service in 500 characters,
so you should use your Authors’ Resource Box to get the reader
to your website, where you will do the real selling…

Tell A Story People Want To Read

Often, the difference between someone who will try to write an
article for $5 and the professional writer who understands the
value of his or her work can be defined simply…

The person writing an article for $5 will “beat around the
bush” for five hundred words, without ever actually saying
anything of any real value to anyone… The person who works for
$5 an article is just putting words on a page so that he or she
can be paid…

The person who demands $40 to $500 to write an article is a
master of story-telling… He or she will tell a story that
people will want to read, and therefore a story that publishers
will want to publish…

The authors who tell a story that “people are happy to have
read” will find their articles on more high-quality websites,
and they will find more people visiting their websites, as a
result of having read the article…

Words on a page only please search engines, but a story on a page
will ALSO attract readers, visitors and paying customers to your
website…

Interestingly, most online marketing gurus who advise hiring
people to write $5 articles also fail to tell a truth — they
fail to point out that articles that pass real link popularity to
a website must have link popularity to pass on to your website…

People don’t link to articles that are nothing more than “words
on a page”, but people will link to a story that needs
telling… Just like with Jeff Herring’s article linked above;
his story is worth sharing with you, and as a result, it has
gained its own links from people who do not know Jeff
personally… (I have never met Jeff Herring or talked to him by
phone or email. It was an honest recommendation for a great
article written by him.)

Jeff’s article has gained its own link popularity, by merit of
it being a good story… As a result, Jeff’s article will pass
real link popularity back to his website, because it has real
value for readers and real link popularity to share…

Article Marketing Will Not Work For Everyone…

There are a great number of us who have made a lot of money with
article marketing… Then there are thousands of others who have
never made any money at all with article marketing…

When you want to find success with an online business, you should
mirror those people who have been successful…

Article Marketing is no different… If you have ever visited a
website or purchased a product, as a result of having read an
article that mentioned the website or product, take another look
at the article that drove you to action… Try to understand the
“how” and “why” that article worked, and then try to figure
out how you can duplicate the formula for yourself…

Chances are good that you will see my “Five Essential Elements
of Successful Article Marketing” in those articles that you are
reviewing…

Fortunately, you don’t have to take my word for what I am
telling you in this article… Whenever you find an article that
moves you to visit the website shown in the Authors’ Resource
Box, take another look at the article to see how closely it
matches with the “Five Essential Elements” I shared with you in
this article… You may be surprised by what you learn…

———————————————————-
If you enjoyed this information, you will find that
it just scratches the surface of what I have included
in my article marketing ebook, “How To Use Article
Marketing To Positively Impact Your SEO Efforts”,
(http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html)
available for sale on my website, http://thePhantomWriters.com/
My name is Bill Platt, and I have been involved in Article
Marketing since early 2000. This article was excerpted in
part, from the one shown here: http://bit.ly/ddWuPg

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