Small Business Marketing Ideas – Article Marketing

Aug. 31, 2013 - PRLog -- Submitting articles to directories is an easy way for businesses to promote their companies’ products or services to a large market. This helps drive traffic to your website and increases the number of potential customers.  The ten (10) strategies below will help you market your articles more effectively.

10 Strategies for more effective article marketing

Offer a free short report
Create a logo
Make paragraphs short
Add new fresh content
Regularly update content
Create an eBook
Outsource
Submit to blog networks
Use social media
Limit keyword use

By offering a free short report you can incentivize more people to opt-in to your mailing list.  This is a technique used by many bloggers today, because once you get people on your list you can develop a relationship with them and turn them into loyal customers.  The short report can be something you write personally or you can get someone else to write the report, but you want to try and offer something new and not use rehashed material.

Evenas a blogger or work at home individual you should create a logo for your business.  This is not just for large corporations because you want to develop a brand for your company that people can identify with.  As people begin to look at your site over and over they will start to trust your brand and when they see your logo somewhere on the internet they will associate the image with you, reminding them of your website.

When writing your articles you want to make your paragraphs short.  This technique makes the reading easier to comprehend and less intimidating.  People are usually turned off by massive amounts of text, and this can help to rectify that issue.  This also helps you focus your writing so you can stick to the point and not ramble on which can bore your readers.  Try to also avoid too much text by adding images in the article that relate to the topic.

Search engines have become more sophisticated now and using rehashed content can hurt your rankings and search query.  One way to sidestep this situation is by creating new content for your articles.  This way when search engines look for the information on your site, it will see new content and attempt to reevaluate your website for indexing.

Related to the creating new content strategy above, regularly updating content is just as vital.  Search engines love fresh content, and when it is updated daily then you have a strong possibility of increased traffic and high Google rankings.  Consistently updating your blog site or website will cause the search engines to rank your site higher.  This may take some time at the beginning, but once you have a solid following you can expect to see more page views and activity on your site.

Once you have written several articles, you should consider creating an eBook.  This document can be used as an opt-in incentive (as discussed above) and/or a special gift for your opt-in list.  When you are providing valuable information within an eBook, it becomes easier for people to comment and share the book because the content is beneficial to people on your list and the people they know.  This has the potential to increase your business if done correctly.

If you feel you cannot consistently produce value packed content then you may want to consider outsourcing.  Utilizing outside help can free up your time to do other things you are good at and enjoy.  There are a number of websites that offer outsourcing assistance for bloggers and article writers, like elance (http://www.elance.com/), odesk (http://www.odesk.com/), and guru (http://www.guru.com/) just to name a few.  These and other websites offer affordable options for people looking to outsource the daily article writing.

Submitting to blog networks is another way to market your articles more effectively.  Blogging is extremely popular today and many sites offer a wealth of information that can be useful to the article writer.  A good blog can drive traffic to an opportunity (http://www.themogulmindset.com/great_opportunity/) or website.  Blogging networks can be easily found on the web, but make sure to submit your articles to groups that share your common interest and relate to your companies’ product or service.

Making use of social media is a must, and goes without saying.  Today, social websites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are visited by millions of people a day and ignoring this area is a mistake.  These social media sites attract new readers which in turn can become loyal customers.  For this reason social media marketing should be high on every businesses (http://www.empowernetwork.com/almostasecret.php?id=emanilegacyproject/) list.  If a person on your list shares an article you created, you can then reach thousands more people that you may not have had the marketing budget to reach.

In order to have a value packed article that appeals to your readers you must limit the use of key words throughout the text.  Too many keywords can make you lose focus and diminish the value in your article.  By using only a few keywords you can concentration on the topic of the article and ensure you are providing value that your readers will appreciate.  Make sure to place the keywords in strategic places, like the heading, sub-heading, subtitles, URL, and only a few places throughout the body of the article.

If used properly and regularly these strategies will help your article rank on the major search engines.  This form of marketing is cheaper than many others discussed previously (http://www.themogulmindset.com/small-business-marketing-ideas/), but can be one of the hardest to master with the never ending changes from the search engines.  If done correctly, these strategies will help your article stay relevant and popular amongst your target market of readers.

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Jason Lockhart
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