Article Marketing: Making It Interesting!

When it comes to producing articles for your article marketing campaign, you may find yourself staring at a flashing curser on the screen while you decide what to write. Here are some tips to help you decide not only what you should be writing, but also how to keep it structured, interesting and relevant to your business.

What To Write About

Once you decide to write an article marketing campaign, the first thing you should do is decide on your list of topics. Think about the questions that your customers ask you most regularly. There will be a number of issues that crop up time and time again. Also you can ask your customers what they would like more information on, and what is most relevant to them. If you’ve got a strong viewpoint on something to do with your industry, or there have been important developments that have made mainstream news recently, don’t be afraid to comment on them.

Structure

If you’re new to writing articles, it can be helpful to structure the information you intend to write about before you embark on the actual article itself. Your first paragraph should introduce what it is you’re going to talk about, followed by the points you’re making, then rounded off with a final paragraph in conclusion and (most importantly) the link to your website, your name and company details.

The Competition

Look at what your competitors are doing. Do they post a lot of information online that people can access for free? If so, there probably isn’t going to be mileage in providing exactly the same information.

How can you make your viewpoint different from theirs?

If there’s something that they do that you disagree with, say so – but be prepared to explain why. One of the key components to using article marketing successfully is to make your information better, or different from, the stuff that’s already out there. Don’t though give away your trade secrets – remember that anyone can access the information you put on the internet, and that includes your competitors.

Don’ts With Articles

The trick with article writing is to ensure that what you are writing is of value to the reader. If your article begins to sound like a brochure or advertisement, it’s too sales oriented and is unlikely to hold a reader’s attention for long.

One of the best exercises you can do is to ask yourself whether your customer or someone who could become a potential customer would be pleased to read your article, what they would think of your business once they’d read it, and whether it holds their attention from beginning to end. If you can answer yes to all of these, you’ll have an engaging, high quality article that you can be proud of.

Any thoughts or questions? Please leave a comment below.

Article Marketing: You’re The Expert, Now Tell The World

Done well, your article marketing campaign can establish you as the expert in your field and do wonders for SEO. Done badly, you can spend a lot of time writing and posting content that no one’s going to read or worse, if your content is poor and littered with grammatical and factual mistakes, your articles can damage your brand’s reputation.

Similarly, if your content has been stuffed full of keywords so that it is of little to no use to anyone, this isn’t likely to do your business any favours either.

Overcome Writer’s Block

Let’s face it, even professional writers find it difficult to sit down and write, but before you decide that you hate writing or don’t have the time to write a proper set of articles (for example Ezinearticles gets new writers to write ten articles to begin with) – let’s look at the benefits of marketing in this way.

A good set of well written, correctly categorized articles can enhance your business’s reputation no end. Coupled with this, and with determination and persistence, you can become an established and well-respected expert in your particular field. When a potential customer needs your service, are they more likely to go to the person they’ve heard of and who’s already given them free and reliable information, or someone they’ve never heard of?

Not Convinced You’re An Expert?

You know your business better than anyone else. Your business is how you make money, so you’ve undoubtedly put a lot of time and effort into building it and making it as successful as you can.

You also have your own individual take on the world and your experience, coupled with the business area in which you have specialist expertise, gives you a unique insight into your subject matter. Your competitors may have been in business longer than you, have a different business model, and have competing ideas about your industry. So if you disagree with them, why not be bold and say so?

Think Like An Expert

Of course, being an expert comes with its own responsibilities. You’re not only projecting your viewpoint on the world, but you also have to be prepared for the fact that other experts can and will disagree with you.

The trick here is not to shout them down, discredit them, or insist on having the last word. It’s far better to accept that not everyone will agree with you or your viewpoint. However, always ensure that what you do write, you write with conviction – and your expertise will shine through.