I was taking a peek through Ezine Articles today, looking for articles on a niche topic I’m thinking about working on and I came across something that startled me:
Articles without any resource box or links back to their website
The articles were written by a lady named ‘Betsy’ and it appears to me she’s missed the point of article marketing entirely.
So I thought I better get over here to my blog and remind everyone how to build your business with article marketing.
Step 1: What is Your Goal?
What do you want to achieve with your article. Usually, it’s a click back to your website. But think even beyond the click – what do you want people to do once they land at your site? Know your goal before you write a single word.
Step 2: Craft An Article To Match Your Goal
There’s no point in writing an article that has absolutely not relevance to your target goal. You MUST craft your article to work towards your end goal. That means you need to do Step 1 first 
Step 3: Craft a Resource With a Compelling Call to Action
As I mentioned (and Betsy completely missed!) a resource box, link and call to action are essential to your article marketing success – don’t forget them!
Look – I could make this a long drawn out post with lots of steps and directions but the fact is experience is your best guide. So get out there and start writing/submitting your own articles but don’t be like Betsy!
A couple of great sites to submit to:
http://www.ezinearticles.com
http://www.ladypens.com
Here’s an example of what you can do, my 150+ article on Ezine Articles:
http://www.marketersmojo.com/free-marketing-articles
p.s. For more tips, videos and links on article marketing – click here
I just saw your video, Dear Guru.” Loved it! It captures what a lot of us think. Well done.
A comment about eZine articles. I dropped a lot of pages in Google ranking because I thought I could write an eZine article and use the content of that article as a base for content on my website. This is a mistake. Google considers this duplicate content. I’ve deleted several eZine articles that I wrote and used as content on my own website, but the damage may be done. Some of the content I submitted to eZines is posted on blogs and there’s no way I can get rid of it.
I asked Google to reconsider my site. We’ll see.
Keep writing songs!
The problem comes when writers take the term Author Bio too seriously and begin to tell the reader all about themselves and their accomplishments.
This is great if you are looking for an ego stroke but it’s a disaster if you are wanting to create traffic, build your list and make profits. Another trap here is believing that the Resource Box is the place to convince the reader that you are an expert.
Here’s the bottom line – if you have not convinced the reader in the body of your article that you are an expert, it’s way too late by the time they are reading the Resource Box, if they are reading it at all.
Think of it this way – if you begin the Resource Box with information about you, it’s like announcing to the reader “The article is now over and you can go away.” Not quite the outcome you want, right?