Article submissions are a great way to grow your business online; that much is clear. Yet many people just like you are wondering, “What makes a good marketing article anyhow?” We are taught to use bold action words in sales copy. We are trained to present a problem and a solution. We are instructed to use an engaging second-person tone directed right at the consumer. These are all true. However, what you don’t want to do in your article writing is to seem desperate by pushing the sale. You want your article to appeal to a person who is seeking information, first and foremost. When that person feels comfortable enough, he or she will make a purchase. If your article has been particularly compelling, the subtle link to your page will be clicked and a sale will be made.

To understand what makes a good marketing article, you must first consider the similarities and differences between writing for print publications and writing for online mediums. Magazines and newspapers have hundreds or thousands of subscribers who will flip through the pages each week or each month, regardless of what’s there. Headlines can be witty and coy. On the other hand, internet marketing articles need to seek out an audience by using more direct headlines to attract search engine attention. Magazine and newspaper articles often have to write to certain editorial standards, with advertisers in mind. Online writing instead appeals directly to the readers, aiming to inform them, which will ultimately make them feel more comfortable with upcoming purchasing decisions. The attention span also varies greatly with print versus online writing. While someone may read 5,000 words in a magazine, 500 words is a more appropriate length for internet copy — and paragraphs should be shorter, rather than longer.

A good marketing article is written with search engine optimization in mind. Research dictates that most consumers have no idea which brands they prefer when they come to Google to search for something. They’ll type in phrases like “inexpensive digital camera,” “real estate agent in Seattle Washington” or “best article marketing company” to find what they’re looking for. To win these consumers over, you need to base your content around what they’re searching for. An invaluable tool is Google Adwords, which will list the most frequently searched keywords, useful variations and keyword popularity. If this all sounds like Greek to you, then perhaps you should speak with a qualified SEO article marketing expert.

Lastly, your marketing article should provide new information in an entertaining way. To do this, you should be scanning Google news headlines or other blogs to see what people are talking about. For example, if you are selling digital cameras and you hear a report that people are cutting back their spending on consumer electronics due to the recession, then you might want to write an article about “cheap digital cameras” or “inexpensive cameras” to draw in that target market. If people seem to be interested in “product safety” or the “green revolution,” try to relate your products or services to those topics. The best free articles have an engaging tone and use second-person narrative to actively engage the reader. You may also choose a more detached, professional-sounding third person perspective, but rarely should first person “I/my” be used.

Some entrepreneurs feel they can whip up a 500-word article, submit it to multiple free article publishing sites and just sit back, while the traffic streams in. However, professionals who’ve made it to the first page of Google’s search results know that marketing with articles entails so much more. You need to know what keywords will bring — not just traffic — but targeted traffic to your page. You’ll also need to know how to use links to your advantage. You will have to realize that submitting the exact same article to many sites can negatively impact your Google rating. You’ll also need to understand how affiliate marketing, linking, press release submission and other tools work along with your article business marketing to create a strategic plan for success.

In one case study, a business owner created a 25-page niche website, with each inner page created around one target keyword phrase, for which a promotional article was created. Each article (including back-links in the “About the Author” resource box) was also submitted to directories like www.ezinearticles.com and www.goarticles.com. He also got linked up with an affiliate network of 10,000 sites that trade one-way back-links as well. After eight months, there were 2,600 unique visitors and 650 returning visitors each month. This number continued to grow steadily to 5,315 in August and earned the owner $180/month in revenue through AdSense. As you can see, article business marketing really works!

In another example, Danforth Diamond outsourced their targeted article marketing to another firm that specialized in copywriting and search engine optimization. Their main focus was a new metal they were selling called palladium. So this marketing company wrote a landing page for “palladium jewelry,” an additional article about palladium and why it’s good for jewelry (which was distributed on article submission sites), a press release about Danforth Diamond’s palladium and blog posts about palladium. Focused link building with keywords like “palladium,” “jewelry” and “rings” were also part of their overall marketing strategy. After a few months, marketing with articles had really paid off. They moved from virtual obscurity to a #3 Google ranking for competitive search terms like “diamond engagement rings” and “engagement rings.”

Marketing with articles is best left to the professionals. If you enjoy writing and have a knack for it, then consider creating your own blog instead. Even if you are a proficient writer, you will need someone with an in-depth knowledge of online marketing strategies, keyword research, keyword density, link building, affiliate marketing, submission of articles, press release writing and copywriting that presents a “call to arms.” Writing for enjoyment and being able to write marketing articles to sell are two very different things, after all.

Business-to-business marketing is unique in that the business buyer needs your product. He isn’t looking out for something he “might enjoy,” but rather he is coming to you with a specific need, so he is already on the verge of buying from someone. Secondly, the business buyer is more sophisticated and has the desire to learn everything about your product or service. He is willing to read longer copy and he wants to read a promotional article that is packed with facts and valuable information to help facilitate his decision making process. Business to business article marketing is designed to educate a discerning fellow business owner who wishes to learn more about your products and services.

A 2009 study conducted by Booz & Company and the Association of National Advertisers found three key attributes of the most successful business-to-business marketers. First, they collected loads of data, including customer’s buying decisions, purchasing history, financial position, marketing strategies, pricing strategies, buying motivation and business goals. Once this information was collected, they integrated this with product/service development. Second, they said their focus on brand management and separating themselves from the competition was one of their strengths. Third, they set prices based on market response and value to consumers, rather than internal cost-driven factors. Article marketing strategies fit well with the objectives of top performing companies. In essence, business to business article marketing can be used to create a brand identity and to track statistics.

Another important reason to add business to business article marketing to your overall strategy is the undeniable truth that search marketing is still generating the bulk of business-to-business leads. The 6th Annual B2B Marketing Benchmark Report 2009-2010 (conducted by Marketing Sherpa) sums it up by saying, “During the most difficult economic times that the search marketing industries has seen in its decade-long life, search marketers are more relevant than ever. The Web itself is getting ’smarter.’ Web 1.0 was mostly static with publishers communicating to consumers. Web 2.0 is two-way, with consumers talking back to publishers. Web 3.0 uses information from the consumer to tailor the experience to individuals.” A true article marketing expert understands current trends and knows just how to use programs that analyze online article submissions to see what keywords bring traffic to a website, as well as what keywords bring business owners who are most ready to buy, what messages are bringing in the most targeted traffic, what messages are scaring people off and where are they going and what are they looking for once they leave the site without buying.

Business to business article marketing is part of an $85 billion/year industry. The growth of business to business marketing in general is attributed to the increasing number of entrepreneurs present in this country. More retirees, students and stay-at-home moms are finding ways to bring in additional revenue through resale businesses or running their own companies. The freedom to set one’s own hours and pay rate is attractive for many individuals, which has increased the number of small business service providers that specialize in niches like article marketing services, search engine optimization, accounting, document preparation and social media advising.

Writing articles may have never crossed your mind as a marketing idea, but it’s the technique behind every successful site online. From a search engine standpoint, the best websites provide users with something of value. They should be directed to a page that has content they want to read and/or products they want to buy. So how does the search engine bot find these sites, you ask? That’s the million dollar question, of course, guarded fiercely by computer scientists at Google, Yahoo and Bing. However, what we do know is that the top performing websites all have something in common; content article marketing.

First, we’ll talk about how the writing of articles can help your business. Ultimately, you want published articles to bring potential buyers to your site. The only way visitors can find your site (unless they’re specifically searching your name) is by typing a term into the search engine and checking the links on the first page of results. Statistics show if you’re not in the top results, you can forget about people ever finding you. A group of people called Search Engine Optimization experts spend their days analyzing what sort of terms people are typing into the search engines. They can even run diagnostic tests on your page that tell them where people are coming from to reach your site, what search terms delivered traffic, what search terms delivered sales, how long people stayed on your site, what pages sent people fleeing and where people went next. This research can greatly help your overall internet marketing campaigns.

Your website can be the best in the world, but what good is it if no one can see it? By writing articles to publish on your homepage, you will show search engines that you mean business. You’re not just another useless site out there; you have much to offer consumers. As the search engines crawl your page, they’ll look for numerous internal pages, freshly updated content, blocks of 500 words or more, keywords that are in high demand and the appropriate density of keywords. Well-written promotional articles can accomplish all of these things. If your rankings improve, then you will undeniably see more traffic coming to your site. Ideally, this increased awareness will bring more buyers and sales.

As far as marketing dollars go, you can get a lot of bang for your buck with online article marketing. Some people start by writing articles themselves, while others hire established copywriters to do the trick. The benefit of working with a professional is that you’ll be sure people will be impressed by your writing caliber and will read through the entire article. You’ll do a better job establishing credibility, calling the reader to buy and urging the reader to visit your page. The going-rate of a professional copywriter can range from $10/hour – $100/hour. Some writers may charge by the project or by the article. You may also choose to bundle your services with a writer/search engine optimization expert combo. Whatever you decide, give it about six months and you will see dramatic results.

Article writing is a valuable tool that businesses use to grow. You can publish these articles on your own website, which shows search engine bots that you have unique, compelling, freshly updated content that uses all the right keywords. You can also publish these articles on third party article submission sites, which provide you with inbound links and shows that there is distinctive value on your page. The content of your articles should show readers that you’re knowledgeable within your field and should get readers excited about the products or services you specialize in. Then, when it’s time to buy, readers will click on a link to your page and find instant gratification!

Most article publishing sites offer their own writing and submitting guidelines. Generally speaking, the best article submissions are 400-500 words and contain one or two well-researched keyword phrases. The best keyword phrases are location-specific for small business contractors, realtors, retail stores and other companies. For instance, “Atlanta carpet cleaners” is a better term than just “carpet cleaners.” Additionally, the density of your keywords is relevant too. In the past, web users would occasionally find sites with a hodgepodge of nonsensical words strung together. Today’s search engines are much smarter and demand that relevant content be published, not just strings of useless keywords. Your tone should be engaging, written in second or third person, and informative. Try to tie industry news, recent studies and current events to your articles.

It’s also important to note several common article writing blunders. Perhaps the most common is the failure to proofread an article for spelling, punctuation and grammatical errors. This can really kill your articles! Once a reader sees an obvious error, they’re gone, never to return, and in the meantime you’ve managed to destroy any credibility you had hoped for. Another error is an author’s tendency to over-hype a product or service. People don’t like to feel as though they’re being treated as mindless consumers. Save all your promotion for the box at the end and instead, focus your efforts on submitting articles that educate the reader on their chosen topic.

Article writing is best left to the professionals. While you’ll find many generic, poorly-written article promotions, you want yours to stand out. You want an article that not only attracts and interests readers, but one that also drives people to buy in a very subtle way. Search engine optimization can easily be a full-time business. Most business owners don’t have the time to run diagnostic tools to see how much traffic is visiting the site, where they’re coming from, how many are buying, or which pages are scaring people off, etc. Optimizing your homepage can be tricky too, since Google is always creating new algorithms to determine which sites contain the most value for users.

Getting technical reviews done for technical documentation is becoming noticeably harder. During the last few years, being based at different companies and using different review methods, the phenomenon connected with the problem of getting technical reviews completed by SMEs remains the same.

Theoretically the easy way to get you documents out and reviewed is to distribute it to a pre-determined list, either hardcopy or electronic via email, and ask for comments back by a certain date. This way you are guaranteed to get nothing or almost nothing back, even if you have been chasing them up by email for a response. And if you do get responses they are either contradictory, full of questions or question marks (even more annoying), or they have been editing typos and not the technical stuff.

Another option is to call a meeting. Some people love meetings and will spend the whole day going from one to another because it gives them the air of self importance, and to others they will seem to be at the cutting edge of the company. You will probably find that the people who have not been giving you written feedback to your review requests are the first to respond to meeting invitations.

Not wishing to go into the psychological reasons why this happens, there is one thing you must bear in mind; just because you have a group of attentive project SMEs and leaders around a table do not automatically assume you are going to achieve anything.

SMEs rarely prepare for a review meeting, you are lucky if they even read any part of the document. They leave the reading until the meeting and then comment in real time. This limits their time spent reviewing the document is the length of the meeting itself, instead of the hours they would have spent reviewing the document properly. This approach leads to a poor review of the document for you.

If the SMEs do a read through the document before the meeting, it is still difficult to cover much more than the first 30 pages in an hour long meeting. So if you are dealing with long documents multiple meetings are required and the SMEs attendance will dwindle.

My conclusion of all this is to have a review meeting after a first technical review. Allow the SMEs to do a paper review and send you the comments, making them aware a meeting will be held within one week of you receiving the comments back. When you get the comments back compile them into page order and then redistribute this list with a meeting invitation.

And you have no fear that the reviews will get done as nobody wants to waste time going over a document page-by-page, which they all know they will have to do if no pre-meeting reviewing is carried out..

You can then hold the meeting with the knowledge that a lot of the points have already been resolved. Action points can be made against those that are outstanding. Everybody will know who you are and you will know what is really happening in the project.

Dave Odell – Freelance writer

What kind of writing do you enjoy? If you prefer to be creative, you may wish to pursue a career as a novelist or writing poetry and short stories. You may even enjoy writing fun articles or editorials for a magazine or newspaper. However, if you are more of a detail oriented, fact-based writer, more easily creating factual and scripted articles and other documents that focus on the who, what, when, and how questions of a subject, you may more likely enjoy a career path in technical writing, detailing information that includes a number of factual ideas in relation to specific products and their functionality or usage.

The technical writing market includes a wide genre of applications because there are several industries that require a department purely for the creation of documentation on the various products and services they provide. They need installation information, programming details, white pages on the products and services they are involved with. Directions for use and troubleshooting documents are also prepared by individuals in technical writing departments.

Perhaps you have some general knowledge of one of the industries in which technical writing is pertinent and feel that you could become a technical writing expert in a particular field. The most important aspect of breaking into the market is knowledge of terminology in a particular field, as well as a great command of language. If you have these skills, technical writing might be something you want to pursue. For example, if you have worked in the past in fields like computer technology, IT, telecommunications, HVAC and mechanical equipment installation, you can probably do quite well in a technical writing position within that field. Since it isn’t necessary for you to understand every function of every product in the field, you can simply be familiar with the terminology used in the field and the format of typical literature found in the industry and be considered qualified.

This means that you can easily enter into the technical writing market and produce similar documents. Assuming you’re well equipped for a position in the field of technical writing, search online for available career opportunities. You’ll find thousands of them available, and you’ll quickly learn that there is plenty of opportunity for success and advancement.

Source: http://www.techauthors.co.uk

There are many businesses who try to get away with providing their own copywriting when it comes to their website. Most businesses think having their logo up on their website with many photos is good enough but it is actually the copywriting that will create the sales for you. Without the basics of copywriting, your website won’t stand out against your competitors. The following are ways to turn your website into sales.

When your visitors find your website, you want them to land on something called a landing page. This is the page where it only takes a short while for people to decide if he or she leaves. Never use business jargon in your copywriting methods. There are many businesses who have a lot of text written about their company and how they began. Potential customers want to know how your business will benefit them. Leave anything about your business on the About Us page. Your landing page should always be about your potential customer with something catchy and memorable.

Always be yourself when you are writing for your business. Many business owners feel the need to impress with business vocabulary. Consider some of the most successful businesses online. For example, think about Amazon online. Their website is one big money maker because they treat their customers like a friend. When you do copywriting for your website, try to create it into a conversation that you would have with your friends or family. You want to tell potential customers about your product or service without it being stuffy. The most important thing to remember in your copywriting is to use the word “you”.

Keep your copywriting short and to the point. On the internet, people have very short attention spans because it’s easy to get to the next website of interest. You have to be able to grab their attention quickly with the actions you want. For example, you may have a phenomenal sale that you want them to take advantage of in the next 3 days. Always use action words that will tell your customers what you are seeking from them by placing yourself in their shoes. Thinking like your customer can create the best copywriting material.

Don’t go overboard with too much text. Like above, you want to keep your writing to the point. People generally read the first paragraph to see what your website is all about. If you have more than one paragraph for your visitors to read, do break up the text as much as you can. When people see an entire home page full of information, it can be too much for them to absorb all in one place. If you have information you want potential customers to know, try breaking it up on different indexed pages.

The above are some of the basic copywriting concepts, which will help you create a successful website in no time! Basic copywriting can be learned at any stage your business is in. Make sure to put it in practice as soon as possible and watch your business performance improve.

SEO copywriting is a popular gig for many freelance writers but there are business owners who can create their own SEO copywriting with some know how. SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine Optimization is composed of many things a website owner can do to drive more traffic to their site which in turn will increase sales. The following are some of the things you can ensure that your SEO copywriting is at its best.

When you talk about SEO with internet business owners, you can be sure to hear about keywords. Keywords are the most popular words and phrases that people type in search engines when they are looking for something. For example, if you were interested in launching a website pertaining to your local eco-friendly store, you would find out what the most popular searches are on going Eco-friendly. You may find out that there is a wide variety of topics you can focus on with a niche. Always try to narrow down the topic of your website so you can create SEO copywriting easily. If you’re all over the place with your SEO copywriting, you will find that you are not targeting the right market which will equal to no sales. You want to increase your website traffic, but it always has to be the right traffic. Without the right traffic, you will lose customers on a daily basis. Do find the best keywords that are being searched on the most popular search engines like Google and Yahoo.

To get to the top of search engines is a mixture of popular keyword trends and content. Do your research by typing in what you’re planning to launch your website with. For example, if your topic is on Eco-friendly pet collars, do visit all the top websites that come up when you type in those words on Google and other popular search engines. Always make sure you thoroughly research your topics. You want to create SEO copywriting that the other websites have not touched yet otherwise your website will show up on the top with too much competition. Offer content that can’t be found elsewhere and check to see how many websites come up with each search you do. You want to focus on a search that has low numbers of websites coming up.

Don’t just stick with your website when it comes to SEO copywriting. Many smart website owners are using more than their websites to drive traffic to their home website. There are the use of blogs, videos and social networking sites. With what you have learned about above, you can certainly have more than one of your websites come up as a top website in a search engine. Vary your SEO copywriting and see what is working with your websites. Always keep track of your placement in search engines and how much traffic is coming from it.

Learning SEO may be time-consuming, but it’s well worth it for those business owners who want to save money on hiring SEO freelance writers. You can visit your local bookstore to pick up the latest SEO tips and tricks. As well, there are many free resources online for website owners where you can sign up for SEO copywriting e-zines that conveniently go straight to your email.

As a business owner, you may find that business budgets are tight this year because you’re feeling the global recession. You may find that you need to learn more about maintaining your website and basic writing. Hiring a professional copywriter can be expensive, but it can be one of the things you do yourself. Who knows your business better than you?

These are four of the best and simple copy writing techniques you can do for your website, which can increase your business performance. You may not have written an article or paper since school, but it’s not hard to get back to the writing basics. There is nothing worse than finding an eye-catching website with information you want to read about, and there are typos and grammatical errors. You may not always need to write copy, but if it’s long, do make sure that it’s readable. Always proofread your writing and, if you can, have someone else proof it for mistakes. A potential client always wants to know that the person they hire is professional and not careless with their website.

As online marketing professionals know, SEO is very important to how your website will be found on search engines, but you don’t want to go keyword crazy. This can have a negative impact on the search engines, as it’s similar to spamming them with keywords that are not related to your website. Learn about the keywords you need to use that relate to the market you want to reach. Make sure the keywords are not just fitted into any place in the article. It must flow well and be readable. It’s important to write something that is informational to a reader, and not just bombarded with obvious keywords.

Every business should know who their audience is. It does sound simple, but there are many website owners and bloggers who don’t have a specific target market. You don’t want to complicate things by not knowing who your copy is being read by. For example, if your audience is very young and trendy, don’t use technical business terms that they won’t want to read. Always write copy to your specific market. If your audience are professional business owners, your audience will be looking for professionalism and expertise copy.

You want to ensure that you have enough information for your readers, but you don’t want it to be too long in depth. If you also blog for your business, a short blog post would be similar to the amount of text for your website copy on each page. Don’t forget to break up your copy into paragraphs and headings if it is longer than the standard 300 words. Each page of your website should inform your customers of what they need to know about your business. For example, there should be a home page, about the business or owner, products or services, policies, and most of all testimonials. Using testimonials can be the easiest copy for your business, but do ask for permission from your clients if their words can be used online.