Article Marketing 101

By Christopher Knight

If you want to really make your article "SELL" then you've got to craft the perfect RESOURCE BOX. This is the "author bio" that is below your article body and it's also known as your "SIG" (short for SIGnature).

Here are the essential items that should be in your RESOURCE BOX:

Your Name: You'd be amazed at how many folks forget to include their name in the RESOURCE BOX. Your name and optional title should be the first thing in your resource box.

Your Website Address: in valid URL form. Example: http://Your-Company-Name.com/

Your Elevator Pitch: This is 1 to 3 sentences that encapsulates the essence of what makes you and your offering unique. Also known as your USP (Unique Selling Proposition).

Your Call To Action: You've got them warmed up and now it's time to lead them to BUY from you or visit your website. This is where you "Ask For The Sale." Best to only give (1) specific call to action.

Here are some optional items you could include in your RESOURCE BOX:

Your Ezine Subscription Address: While getting your interested visitor to surf your website is nice, capturing their email address can help you begin the confidence/trust process. If you're going to do this strategy, include a URL for your ezine subscription address and do not use an email address for the "join" address.

Your Contact Information: Such as your business phone number or how to reach you for interviews or your press/media kit. Keep in mind that article marketing is a timeless strategy and you may not have an easy ability to retract what you put in your article once it hits major distribution.

A Free Report: This could also be part of your call to action or your free bonus report that further enhances your credibility as the expert on the topic of your article.

Your email autoresponder: I'm not a big fan of this strategy due to the fact that spammers will text-extract your autoresponder address and add it to their spam list. Perhaps this strategy was best for the 1990's and has now run its course.

An anchor URL that is related to one keyword or keyword phrase that you want to build SEO strength for. Example: if I wanted to build search engine relevance/strength for the term "Article Marketing," I'd link up that term in my resource box to my website. This is an intermediate to advanced level strategy and should not be abused by over-doing it. Keep it simple.

What NOT to include in your RESOURCE BOX:

A listing of every website you own. There is no faster way to dilute your credibility than by posting a half dozen irrelevant URLs that have nothing to do with each other. Best to only post ONE URL that is related to the topic of your article.

A listing of every accomplishment you've achieved to date. No one cares. Keep your resource box brief and to the point. Yes, your resource box should be benefit oriented so that the reader finds value in reading it rather than your ego being justified.

Advertisements or pitches for products that are not relevant to the topic of your article.

Keep the size of your resource box so that it's no larger than 20% of your total article size. Too often I see resource boxes that are 50% of the size of the total article and this is abusive.
Your Perfect Resource Box Conclusion:

The BODY of your article is where you "GIVE" and the RESOURCE BOX is where you get to "TAKE" for your article marketing gift of information. The resource box is the "currency of payment" you receive for giving away your article. Be sure to include your name, website address, your unique selling proposition as briefly as possible and a simple call to action.

About The Author:

Christopher M. Knight invites you to submit your best quality original articles for massive exposure to the high-traffic http://EzineArticles.com/ expert author community. When you submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, your articles will be picked up by ezine publishers who will reprint your articles with your content and links intact giving you traffic surges to help you increase your sales. To submit your article, setup a membership account today: http://EzineArticles.com/submit/

Article Marketing: Big Blunders to Avoid

Article marketing proves to be successful to you and your website and product only if you know the rules to article marketing. There are numerous mistakes that people do on article marketing, and here are the five biggest mistakes.

Many people create an un-targeted title for the article. Remember that the title of the article is what will pull a visitor to your article. If the title is not eye-catching and interesting, it is most likely that no one will even try reading your article.

The second mistake article writers do is including the article summary in the body of the article.

The summary of the article is meant to give the reader an idea of the article so it should not be included in the article, more so used as the first paragraph of the article. Moreover, don’t repeat the summary in the article as the reader should read the paragraph only once.

The third mistake is including website links in the body of the article. All website links, if any should be placed at the end of the article, in the signature block. This is what the signature block is used for in the web page.

One of the most important points to remember in article marketing lies in making submissions of articles in the right categories. So submitting articles in an irrelevant category is another blunder in article marketing.

Similarly, it is important to include only relevant signature blocks in your article. Having an irrelevant signature block in your website is a mistake that should not be made in article marketing.

Top Article Marketing Tips

Article marketing is one of my favorite methods of driving traffic to my website. The reason I use article marketing for driving traffic to my website is that article marketing creates some of the most highly responsive subscribers and visitors to my website, bar none.

Why is article marketing so effective at driving highly qualified traffic to my website? I think that one of the biggest reasons that article marketing is so effective at driving qualified traffic to my website, and yours too, is that when someone reads an article, and clicks through to my website, they already know who I am, and what I am about.

Someone who comes to me via article marketing does not need to be sold on who I am. They already know who I am. They have come to my website because they want more information.

People that come to my website via article marketing are several times more responsive than people who come to my website via Google or other search engines or via any other sort of traffic, except for possibly joint-venture traffic.

However the nice thing about article marketing is that I can control article marketing.
Article marketing, all I have to do is write articles, include my links in the articles, and submit them to the various online article directories.

The article directories publish my articles at no cost to me, promote them all over the web, and I receive the traffic from them. Therefore article marketing is one of the easiest forms of traffic generation I do.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, ‘Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide‘