Tim Bossie.com

Article writing and marketing is an incredible way to drive long term, and free, traffic to your website. Unfortunately a lot of people mess it up.

Writing articles and then submitting them to article directories has been a major traffic generator for several years and shows no signs of slowing down. Why? People search for information. When you article comes up in a search, and gets read, if you play your cards right… you’ll receive a fair amount of sustained traffic for a long time to come. That’s the big attraction for marketing your website with articles. The long term traffic.

There is also another big attraction. It’s free.

Submitting articles to article directories such as EzineArticles.com, GoArticles.com, and IdeaMarketers.com is absolutely free. You just write, submit, wait for approval. Done.

Articles are especially powerful for affiliates

Affiliate marketing gained a lot of momentum when affiliates realized that writing some articles and listing them with an article directory would bring in free traffic. That’s probably an understatement. Advertising your website with articles exploded in a very short period of time.

Mostly because it is free. However, affiliates realized that they are also doing something else.

In the world of affiliate marketing there is this thing called a landing page. You’ve probably heard it called a squeeze page too. The purpose of this landing page is to do two things. First, provide a place for the affiliate to direct traffic in order presell them before moving onto the merchant site. Second, to offer something of value, usually for free, in order to get that visitor to sign up for an email subscription of some sort. Simple strategy that works.

The problem is when it gets messed up.

I’m sure that it wasn’t meant to be funny, but a great post at EzineArticles.com blog had me in stitches for a little while. Each time I thought about it I cracked up. Chris Knight has been a major player in article marketing and developed the amazing EzineArticles.com site a long time ago. His recent post on the blog, though, reminded me of some of the mistakes I’ve made, but also the mistakes that people continue to make.

One of the highlights that really got me laughing was;

“I’m reading an article on Forex (currency trading) and the links in the resource box goes to body building and lean abs secrets. WTH? (What The Heck!)“

Now that’s funny stuff.

Here’s an affiliate, I am assuming, who has written an article, rewritten an article, or is submitting an article that he paid someone to write, and links to a bodybuilding website. Not a bad idea but I would think the topic of the article should be bodybuilding not currency trading. I’m guessing not a whole lot of traffic is coming from this one.

Which leads me to my previous point. Articles are very powerful in generating traffic… but affiliates keep messing it up.

How to benefit from articles

An article is a tool.

It’s an advertising tool that when used correctly will yield amazing results. And like any other tool you must do just that. Use it correctly. I have a pretty well stocked toolbox. I love working on cars and building things out of wood so I have a wide range of both mechanical and wood working tools. They are all useless to me if I don’t use them right. For instance, I wouldn’t use a hacksaw for ripping a piece of plywood to length. And I definitely wouldn’t use a chisel to help me change the spark plugs in my Tahoe.

An article is only going to work if you use it for the right job. That job in the affiliate marketing world is to direct traffic to a specified webpage. In most cases, a landing page. Here’s a few ways to maximize that process.

Make sure your resource box link fits the topic of the article. Might seem like a no-brainer, but as you can see from the example given above from Chris’ website… it needs to be addressed. Your resource box is where the traffic will come from. Make sure the link you have in there is the same as the topic of the article.

Create a sense of ‘more’ in your resource box. For some people once they get to the end of the article they’re gone. But, if you leave them with a sense that they will get more information by going to your website then they’ll be more inclined to want to go. Don’t think that just because you have a resource box that the person reading your article will automatically visit your site. You have to give them a reason.

Leave the article incomplete. One way to get people to visit your webpage after reading an article is to not finish the article and leave them a link to the rest of it in your resource box. This doesn’t mean that you just submit a few paragraphs. No, most of the article should be there with the exception of the last couple of paragraphs.

Write a two or three part series and only submit the first article. I’ve done this one several times with great success each time. I will write a small series of articles, usually three parts, and then submit the first part of the series to a few article directories. In my resource box I will link to my landing page stating that the other two parts are exclusive information that can only be received there. Works like a charm.

Make sure your landing page topic is the same as the article. Again, this should go without saying, but it happens. Your article is the first step to preselling a new customer. When they get to your webpage they are looking for more. How disappointing it is to show up at a webpage and not find what they are looking for. You’ve just lost a sale.

Writing articles is only the first step.

Once you have the article written you must submit it. When you submit it make sure that it’s ready to do it’s job. See to it that your landing page is ready to do it’s job. When they all work together like a well oiled machine, traffic continues to visit your site, sign up for your newsletter, and visit the merchant site. Click… click… Kaching!