of web users surf the Internet in search of some kind of
information. That's why it is only natural that marketing with
the help of providing sought after information to web surfers
should be a key method in your online marketing strategy. There
are various ways of exploiting this effective and low-cost
method of web marketing. One of them is to write articles
related to your business field and distribute them for free!
There are numerous inherent benefits in this fairly simple and
innovative way of promoting your website and your products.
You can establish yourself as an expert in your field
People trust and tend to buy products from somebody they
consider to be an expert. Once you start writing articles and if
these articles provide valuable information, it won't take long
for you to get accepted as an authority in your subject matter.
Augment your own knowledge
If you write articles, apart from the knowledge that you already
have, you still have to do some home works on the
relevantmaterials – gathering and culling information, data,
surveys, etc. This process eventually improves your own grasp of
the subject as well.
Get targeted traffic to your site
As far as web marketing is concerned this is the main reason why
you should consider writing articles. Each of your articles that
you allow others to republish should carry a resource box which
includes a short description of you as an author and a link to
your website. If readers like your articles, they will visit
your site to check out what else you have to offer.
Increase link popularity of your website
All your articles published in other websites with a backward
link to your website will help boosting your link popularity.
Link popularity indicates the number of web pages that link to
your website. Many search engines use it as one of the main
factors in their algorithm which determines the search engine
ranking of a certain website.
If you are a novice writer and would like to pursue this unique
method of promoting your website, you don't have to worry about
where to start. There's a load of information available on the
Internet about writing. However, before even you start writing
your first article, no matter how good you are in your chosen
subject matter, you still have to do some extra research to seek
out an interesting topic, gather relevant materials on the
topic, evaluate gathered information, organize your thoughts and
plan your article.
While writing an article, maximum time and effort, probably, you
will spend on preparation rather then the physical process of
writing itself.
Here are five steps for novice writers to jump start their
website promotion through article writing.
Step I: Choose a topic
If you feel this method of web marketing suits you, the first
step from here is to choose topics for the articles you plan to
write. While choosing topics, if your purpose is to attract
targeted traffic, make sure that you stick to the subjects
relevant to your business field.
>From the broad base of your business field try narrowing down
several subjects that could be interesting to your prospective
readers. Use those subjects and related materials as your
article topics.
Step II: Gather materials
Once you have a topic to write about and ideas to focus on,
brainstorm surrounding it and find several key phrases relevant
to this topic. All of the information needed for you to explore
your ideas and illustrate your points you can get from the
Internet.
Here is the process of retrieving information from the Internet:
- Use Google and other search engines to find information on the
search terms you identified. One of the best search engines for
this purpose is www.vivisimo.com. Vivisimo's clustering and
meta-search method will help you finding many relevant
information that you might not have thought of.
- Browse through directories to find relevant websites and get
required information from there.
- Seek out specialized repositories of related information.
www.bitpipe.com and www.knowledgestorm.com are two wonderful
resources if you are doing research on business technology. If
you are looking for articles on a topic, try Looksmart's
www.findarticles.com
- Once you collected enough information, now is the time for you
to jot down your ideas and related points. Note down you
thoughts using some structuring systems like mind mapping,
listing, etc.
Step III: Make an outline
Spend sometime on planning your article and develop an outline
of the article. Process of making an outline of your article
will help you visualize your finished product. An outline is a
visual and conceptual list of your ideas and their place in the
article. It should reflect your logical thinking process – the
way you want your readers to see it, a beginning and a
culminating point.
Step IV: Write the article
Write your article addressing your readers in second person. Try
starting your article with something that will spur interest in
your readers. Your article should consist of words within the
range of 600 to 900. This size for articles became a standard
for ezines and, therefore, many ezine publishers simply don't
accept larger articles.
Step V: Edit your article
After finishing, read the article loud. Work on the sentences
that don't sound quite right. Stack the article aside and come
back to it in a day or two. Revise it. You will find many ways
to improve it this time. Your friends and co-workers can help
you too. Let them read the article and make their suggestions.
Writing articles is a skill like any other you develop by
practicing. Why not start doing it now, and at the same time get
targeted traffics to your website?