Creating Traffic Using Articles

 

Creating Traffic Using Articles

 

Articles really do have enormous traffic potential.

 

Problem is, most people are not aware of how to submit articles and get the most out of them.

In fact, a large amount of people think that articles should be just written and then mass submitted. Their logic tends to be that with more submissions, they?ll get more backlinks, and also more people will see their article.

 

Wrong.

 

Some believe that it doesn?t really matter about the quality of an article as long as it gets past the article directory editors.

 

Wrong.

 

Yet others don?t even bother with keyword research, thinking that, after all, they?re just doing it for the backlinks to their own website.

 

Wrong.

 

Let?s go over the principles behind submitting articles to directories.

 

Backlinks are a big part of the reason that anyone submits articles, but

they?re still only part of the reason. Although backlinks will help with the SEO parts of your own website, it is not as immediate an effect as many envision it to be.

 

Just because you submit 20 articles today, you?re not going to magically be at the top of the stack with search engines tomorrow.

 

Which is why the other part of what makes article submissions great is the traffic that is generated by actual people clicking that backlink in the article. Naturally, this too doesn?t happen by magic, and there are three things that must absolutely be fulfilled:

 

1. People must be able to find your article

2. People must want to read your article right to the finish

3. People must then somehow feel compelled to click on your backlink

 

Keyword Research: Positioning Your Article to be Found

 

In a nutshell, not only do you want people to find your article, but you want the right people to find your article.

 

But who are these mysterious ?right people? and where do you find them? Simple. The same place where you find most people who are online: Search Engines.

 

Now, consider the issue at hand. What you want is for people searching for certain keywords related to what you?re marketing to find your article. Chances are however, in most niches, the ?main? keywords have tons of established websites in them, and so trying to compete would be close to impossible.

 

The best way around it is to simply go for the longer keywords,

otherwise known as long-tail keywords. For any given topic there are numerous possibilities of long-tail keywords, some of which will be searched for a lot more often than others.

 

For instance, with a short keyword such as ?making money?, a long-tail version of it would be ?how to make money online? Therefore, what you?re looking for with your keyword research is long-tail keywords with a decent amount of searches (maybe 30 or so per day), and few competing websites.

 

To find the average searches, use such things as Wordtracker and Google?s Keyword Tool, whereas to find competing websites, simply search for the long-tail keyword itself and see how many results come up.

 

The ?winning formula? for keywords is 1 short-tail keyword, coupled with 2 long-tail keywords for each article.

 

Article Composition: Writing What the Reader Wants to Read

 

Don?t write about apples when people want to read about oranges. As far as composing an article goes, that?s the only hard and fast rule.

 

As always, the headline you use plays an important role, since it is the first thing potential visitors encounter. Pull out every trick you can to make it as appealing as possible, but be sure that it relates both to your product, and the body of the article

 

The articles that do best once submitted, and really hold a reader

from start to finish must not only be well-thought out and informative, but also engaging.

 

Taking the previous example, in the ?make money online? niche, what you would ideally want an article to do is talk about something positive in regards to making money online. So, say you?re marketing an online MLM, the article could be a discussion about the strong points of the best MLM.

 

In this way, you can start to tell a reader about how great your MLM is even before he sets foot on your website. Mind you, in the body of the article you should never, ever, be specific or blatantly plug about your product. Leave that for the resource box, which we?ll be getting to in a minute.

 

Possibly the easiest way to get an effective article composed is to use the AIDA method. Incidentally, it stands for Attention-Interest-Desire-Action, and is very well known formula that does produce results. Tons of resources are scattered all over the internet if you want to look into it further.

 

Resource Box 101: Getting Clicks, Getting Traffic!

 

Ask yourself this, ?What would make me want to click something after I?ve read an article??

 

If you can answer that, then you?re pretty much sorted. Honestly, that?s all there is to it, giving the reader a real reason to want to visit your website.

 

Here?s one huge thing not to ever do: Do not end or conclude the article in its body.

Let it flow on right into the resource box, so that the reader does not stop reading, and then continue and find himself faced by an advertisement.

 

By making the resource box the concluding part of the article, rather than a separate entity entirely, you?ll be indirectly promoting the ?clickthrough? as the next logical step of action. Also, you won?t make it seem to be a blatant advert.

 

Remember: People love to buy, but hate to feel as if they?re being sold to.

 

Going back to the example we?ve been using throughout, this means that once your discussion of the advantages of the best MLM is done, you could conclude it in the resource box by saying, ?Well, that basically sums up the main advantages of a great MLM, but some particularly attractive options go above and beyond what we?ve

discussed here?? or something like that.

 

Basically, this sets you up to link back to your website, and the reader never has to miss a beat.

 

Another great tactic to get more clickthroughs is to give your readers an incentive. By putting in a link to a free report, eBook, or some related resource or other that is on your website, you could use that to build up a list, and then market your products to

them afterwards.

 

Promoting a Submitted Article

 

Up to this point, you have an article submitted that targets the correct crowd of people because of its keywords, is engaging and holds its readers all the way through, and then compels them to click the backlink in the resource box.

 

Depending on how competitive the niche and keyword you?ve chosen is, you article may appear on the first page, or a couple of pages back. Certainly, it is enough to get some traffic, but you want more than some? you want tons!

 

This is another part where many people go wrong, In reality, once your article is published, you?re going to want to promote it so that it can rise through the search engine results.

 

Commonly, the easiest way to do this is using social bookmarking to build back links to the article itself. Nothing tough, nothing too time consuming, but it will ensure that you article gets more attention from search engines.

 

Another equally great way to promote one article involves the mass-submission to other directories that some people use, only this time, the back links of those articles are altered to point to the original one.

 

Spending some small effort promoting an article in this way can help your traffic gains. Yes, it is worthwhile, but it is normally at this juncture that people begin to question...

 

?Wait, Why Would I Do This for an Article Directory and Not My Own

Website??

 

This is what many people end up asking themselves. After all, if you consider it carefully, not only are you submitting content to a third party website instead of your own, but you?re also then building backlinks to a that website.

 

Yes, you are effectively promoting the directory that you?ve chosen rather than your own website, but on the other hand you are getting traffic out of it. Also, there is a very real reason why a good article directory (such as EzineArticles.com) is so often used.

 

Good article directories are those with high Page Rank (and a high Alexa score for traffic doesn?t hurt either).

 

Assuming you?re starting off with a new venture, it will no doubt take some time for Search Engines to really weigh in on your page, and give it a substantial amount of attention. Even with time spent building backlinks and adding content to your own website, to attain a Page Rank of 6 such as some article directories have, would be

tough in the span of a few months.

 

By using article directories instead, you can take advantage of the fact that they?re already established and have that great amount of attention from the Search Engines.

 

Where it might have taken you half a year or more to get similar results on your own website, it could take less than a week with a good directory plus the prospect of internal traffic from the article directory itself.

 

More traffic to your article means more traffic to your website, and more sales.

 

Selecting the ?Right? Article Directory, the ?Ideal? Product, and Starting to

Make Money

 

High Page Rank, high traffic, these are no-brainers as far as article directories are concerned, and EzineArticles.com is one of the best in this regard.

 

However, Ezine Articles is notoriously strict in their editorial policies, which isn?t a problem so long as you?re willing to stick to the rules. Otherwise, other options such as ArticlesBase.com would work just as well and are definitely less strict regarding what they do or do not allow.

Also, take a little time to consider what products you?re promoting. If you?re promoting your own products, then yes, you?ll want to make them as unique as possible, but if you?re becoming an affiliate of others, then the best rule of thumb I?ve found is to find what people are buying, and sell it.

 

Almost all affiliate merchants have statistics regarding the performance of various products, so this means that you?ll want to pick those which have a good track record for getting sales.

 

With the right product, right article directory, and definitely the right strategy of conducting an article marketing campaign, you could be seeing results as soon as your articles are published and indexed.

 

None of the key components to article marketing, from the required research and right on to the writing itself, is really too bad. In fact, the only real reason that people sometimes view article submissions with skepticism is the loads of dubious information about it that?s out there.

 

Done right, it really has the potential of being a cash cow. In fact, some people even find that once their article spreads, and is maybe even picked up and published by others; they can even reach the top spot in search engine results for the short-tail keywords. If that happens, then you?re really going to be getting heaps of traffic.