Author Darren Breeze. Writing an article for your business is basically advertising something, but what? What exactly is it are we trying to accomplish when we write an article? Are we trying to get more leads? Or, are we trying to get recognition for expertise in our field? Maybe, we just want to write about something we love and want to share it with people. |
There are many things to take into consideration when writing an article like, who are we aiming at, and what field are we writing in? Where do we want to get our article published? With an online directory or a much narrower field like a magazine or publication?
Let me give you a specific example of what I mean. Let us say you are an engineer and you are the marketing consultant for a firm which manufactures machinery for mining companies. You will have to source publications which are directly related to your field. It is a very narrow field in which you are writing so is there any point in publishing a article like this to an online directory like ezineartilces.com? Probably not.
When you are writing for a specific publication, online or offline, you need to know what the editor of that publication requires from an article. He or she will more than likely not publish your article if it is a sales pitch for example if you are just telling the reader how great your machinery is. That would come across as a sales pitch. Instead look at it from a readers point of view. Think if you had bought that publication would you really like to read an article about how good a certain piece of machinery is? Probably not. It is a much better idea to write about how the machinery works, perhaps how it is maufactured and what it is specifically for. Editors are looking for articles which will enrich their publication with great content which the reader will find interesting and informative.
If the reader is interested enough about your company they will contact you via whatever contact information you have printed inside your articles resource box.
Once your article is published in their publication what can you do next? This depends on the actual publication. Is it offline only? Do they have a online website with a paid service for their subscribers? Some publication don't have any links to specific articles which are printed, they may just have an issue number for the publication which their subscribers can only read. This will make it more difficult for you to promote a specific article on your social media accounts. Instead you will use the issue number and the title of your article to promote it.
Their are huge benefits when writing for such a narrow field. You have a very targeted audience that will probably have paid money to read your article, which makes it scarce. You are informing an educated audience so there is no convincing with sales pitch or trying to convert them. That is for the online marketer. You don't need to worry about SEO or Google PR, they are pointless when it comes to publications like this. So you can concentrate on what matters and that is writing great informative information which the reader will find educational and interesting.
Now let us look at another example. Most of my readers will probably be interested in internet marketing only. That is online publication of their article. If the article you are writing is specifically about internet marketing then it will probably be published online with a link directly to the article. This will enable you to provide a link to it in your social media accounts.
But, you still have to narrow your field. This will make it easier to categorise so your reader will be able to find it easier. But also you don't want to your article to be placed under a category like traffic generation when you are writing about conversions, right? It makes more sense to think about who you are aiming your article at. You can do this by looking in the categories of the directory you are publishing your article. See how they have categorised articles. Is the navigation easy? Would you be able to find your article easily if you wanted to read it?
A lot of articles that I have read in online directories have basically been a sales pitch which entice you to click through to a landing page. A few have been very informative and show a great knowledge of the subject. Before you write your article you need to think about what your angle is on this. Are you writing a sales pitch? Or are you writing a educational and informative article?
Which one works best?
This is a very hot topic, which has endless points of view so I will give you my point of view based on my experience. Most readers are looking for information which relates to their interests at the time. A lot of times they wont bother with reading a sales pitch because they will recognise quickly that is what it is, a sales pitch. This is no good if they looking to further educate themselves in a certain area like conversions or sales copy. I am not saying that the sales pitch doesn't work. It just hasn't really worked for me, and from my experience I would rather click through to someone's website based on their article if the author showed great knowledge of the subject. Then I would be more interested in learning more from them. I wouldn't really want to just land on a landing page when I clicked on their link either. Which brings us to another discussion.
Where do they land?
By taking your reader to a landing page selling something when you have promised more information in your link is a little trick that I have fallen for and many of you will have experienced too. I felt a little cheated and promptly closed the page. If I felt that way then I am sure that I don't want to disappoint my reader by doing this also. I would much rather have landed on a page with lots more, and more in depth information about what I was reading about in the article. This brings trust to your reader that you are not just trying to sell them the latest object and that you do care about their needs. By gaining the readers trust you are much more likely to convert them into a paying customer than if you were to push products onto them as soon as they clicked through to your website.
Let your knowledge be the conversion.
If you show enough knowledge about your field and share lots of great information on your website with your readers for free then the conversion process will be a breeze. You don't have to write sales copy like you would for cold traffic. You are basically doing what is called traffic warming. You are warming you readers up with free information. And they will buy from you if they want to, no matter on the sales copy. This is not always the case of course. These are just my opinions based on my knowledge and experience. Great sales copy is a must and you can't afford to lose a customer because you didn't write good sales copy. In conclusion I am saying give them all the information you can for free and if your reader likes it they will be mush easier to convert to a customer.
If you have read this far then I will assume that you are interested in article writing. You may find it interesting to read the articles that I have published for this website. You can find them on ezinearticles and the link is here:
My Published Articles
At the time of writing I have had 74 views of the five articles published. Which is great.
I will shortly begin to use marketing strategies to get more views which I will teach you. So keep an eye out for them and check back here periodically for more updates.
There is a lot more I am going to write about article writing and marketing. I will touch on the marketing side in my next post coming soon.
Let me give you a specific example of what I mean. Let us say you are an engineer and you are the marketing consultant for a firm which manufactures machinery for mining companies. You will have to source publications which are directly related to your field. It is a very narrow field in which you are writing so is there any point in publishing a article like this to an online directory like ezineartilces.com? Probably not.
When you are writing for a specific publication, online or offline, you need to know what the editor of that publication requires from an article. He or she will more than likely not publish your article if it is a sales pitch for example if you are just telling the reader how great your machinery is. That would come across as a sales pitch. Instead look at it from a readers point of view. Think if you had bought that publication would you really like to read an article about how good a certain piece of machinery is? Probably not. It is a much better idea to write about how the machinery works, perhaps how it is maufactured and what it is specifically for. Editors are looking for articles which will enrich their publication with great content which the reader will find interesting and informative.
If the reader is interested enough about your company they will contact you via whatever contact information you have printed inside your articles resource box.
Once your article is published in their publication what can you do next? This depends on the actual publication. Is it offline only? Do they have a online website with a paid service for their subscribers? Some publication don't have any links to specific articles which are printed, they may just have an issue number for the publication which their subscribers can only read. This will make it more difficult for you to promote a specific article on your social media accounts. Instead you will use the issue number and the title of your article to promote it.
Their are huge benefits when writing for such a narrow field. You have a very targeted audience that will probably have paid money to read your article, which makes it scarce. You are informing an educated audience so there is no convincing with sales pitch or trying to convert them. That is for the online marketer. You don't need to worry about SEO or Google PR, they are pointless when it comes to publications like this. So you can concentrate on what matters and that is writing great informative information which the reader will find educational and interesting.
Now let us look at another example. Most of my readers will probably be interested in internet marketing only. That is online publication of their article. If the article you are writing is specifically about internet marketing then it will probably be published online with a link directly to the article. This will enable you to provide a link to it in your social media accounts.
But, you still have to narrow your field. This will make it easier to categorise so your reader will be able to find it easier. But also you don't want to your article to be placed under a category like traffic generation when you are writing about conversions, right? It makes more sense to think about who you are aiming your article at. You can do this by looking in the categories of the directory you are publishing your article. See how they have categorised articles. Is the navigation easy? Would you be able to find your article easily if you wanted to read it?
A lot of articles that I have read in online directories have basically been a sales pitch which entice you to click through to a landing page. A few have been very informative and show a great knowledge of the subject. Before you write your article you need to think about what your angle is on this. Are you writing a sales pitch? Or are you writing a educational and informative article?
Which one works best?
This is a very hot topic, which has endless points of view so I will give you my point of view based on my experience. Most readers are looking for information which relates to their interests at the time. A lot of times they wont bother with reading a sales pitch because they will recognise quickly that is what it is, a sales pitch. This is no good if they looking to further educate themselves in a certain area like conversions or sales copy. I am not saying that the sales pitch doesn't work. It just hasn't really worked for me, and from my experience I would rather click through to someone's website based on their article if the author showed great knowledge of the subject. Then I would be more interested in learning more from them. I wouldn't really want to just land on a landing page when I clicked on their link either. Which brings us to another discussion.
Where do they land?
By taking your reader to a landing page selling something when you have promised more information in your link is a little trick that I have fallen for and many of you will have experienced too. I felt a little cheated and promptly closed the page. If I felt that way then I am sure that I don't want to disappoint my reader by doing this also. I would much rather have landed on a page with lots more, and more in depth information about what I was reading about in the article. This brings trust to your reader that you are not just trying to sell them the latest object and that you do care about their needs. By gaining the readers trust you are much more likely to convert them into a paying customer than if you were to push products onto them as soon as they clicked through to your website.
Let your knowledge be the conversion.
If you show enough knowledge about your field and share lots of great information on your website with your readers for free then the conversion process will be a breeze. You don't have to write sales copy like you would for cold traffic. You are basically doing what is called traffic warming. You are warming you readers up with free information. And they will buy from you if they want to, no matter on the sales copy. This is not always the case of course. These are just my opinions based on my knowledge and experience. Great sales copy is a must and you can't afford to lose a customer because you didn't write good sales copy. In conclusion I am saying give them all the information you can for free and if your reader likes it they will be mush easier to convert to a customer.
If you have read this far then I will assume that you are interested in article writing. You may find it interesting to read the articles that I have published for this website. You can find them on ezinearticles and the link is here:
My Published Articles
At the time of writing I have had 74 views of the five articles published. Which is great.
I will shortly begin to use marketing strategies to get more views which I will teach you. So keep an eye out for them and check back here periodically for more updates.
There is a lot more I am going to write about article writing and marketing. I will touch on the marketing side in my next post coming soon.