Google blog
If you want to understand how to be successful online, study those who are already successful, and gain an understanding of “what they do” and “why they do what they do…” Then mirror their actions…
I have been very successful using Article Marketing to promote my online businesses, since early 2000…
I have written and distributed many articles that went on to generate sales in the five figures… But for the sake of the FTC, “Very few people will make this kind of money with Article Marketing…”
If you understand the “how and why” of writing great articles, perhaps you can generate more sales from your articles than I have from mine… But if you miss the point of this article, you are likely to never make any money at all with article marketing…
There Are Five Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing:
1. Title – Many people suggest that you should put your top keywords at the front of your article title, but I don’t subscribe to that methodology. I do include my target keywords in the title, when I can, but an article that is well-optimized for the search engines is worthless if it does not get published… The #1 goal of your articles’ title is to get the article opened!! You must present a title that is going to get the attention of publishers and readers; you must present a title that is going to compel a person to at least open your article to see if they will want to read it…
2. Opening Paragraph – The title got your article opened, but now you need your reader to read the article… Tell your reader why they should keep reading your article and read it to its conclusion… Any reader who does not reach your website from your article is a “missed opportunity” to sell your stuff… Show people why it will be in their best interest to finish reading your article…
3. The Article Body – The article body must meet the promise of the Article Title and the opening paragraph… The article body must retain the interest of the reader to the last word… The article body must tell a story people want to read, and leave them wanting more… The article body must successfully carry the reader to your Author’s Resource Box… When finished reading, the reader must be happy to have read the article…
4. The Authors’ Resource Box – The Authors’ Resource Box needs to transition the reader from your article to your website, by offering a compelling call-to-action to get the reader to go to your website… Tell who you are, but don’t go overboard… People do not care who you are – they only care about what else you can do for them… Jeff Herring wrote a great article that elaborates a bit further on how to construct an effective Resource Box here (http://ezinearticles.com/?id=3624961)…
5. Your Landing Page – You should never try to sell your products or services in your Authors’ Resource Box. Instead, you should try to get the reader to your website, where you have an unlimited number of words, videos, pictures and testimonials to tell the real story of your products or services. Few vendors have the ability to sell a product or service in 500 characters, so you should use your Authors’ Resource Box to get the reader to your website, where you will do the real selling…
Tell A Story People Want To Read
Often, the difference between someone who will try to write an article for $5 and the professional writer who understands the value of his or her work can be defined simply…
The person writing an article for $5 will “beat around the bush” for five hundred words, without ever actually saying anything of any real value to anyone… The person who works for $5 an article is just putting words on a page so that he or she can be paid…
The person who demands $40 to $500 to write an article is a master of story-telling… He or she will tell a story that people will want to read, and therefore a story that publishers will want to publish…
The authors who tell a story that “people are happy to have read” will find their articles on more high-quality websites, and they will find more people visiting their websites, as a result of having read the article…
Words on a page only please search engines, but a story on a page will ALSO attract readers, visitors and paying customers to your website…
Interestingly, most online marketing gurus who advise hiring people to write $5 articles also fail to tell a truth — they fail to point out that articles that pass real link popularity to a website must have link popularity to pass on to your website…
People don’t link to articles that are nothing more than “words on a page”, but people will link to a story that needs telling… Just like with Jeff Herring’s article linked above; his story is worth sharing with you, and as a result, it has gained its own links from people who do not know Jeff personally… (I have never met Jeff Herring or talked to him by phone or email. It was an honest recommendation for a great article written by him.)
Jeff’s article has gained its own link popularity, by merit of it being a good story… As a result, Jeff’s article will pass real link popularity back to his website, because it has real value for readers and real link popularity to share…
Article Marketing Will Not Work For Everyone…
There are a great number of us who have made a lot of money with article marketing… Then there are thousands of others who have never made any money at all with article marketing…
When you want to find success with an online business, you should mirror those people who have been successful…
Article Marketing is no different… If you have ever visited a website or purchased a product, as a result of having read an article that mentioned the website or product, take another look at the article that drove you to action… Try to understand the “how” and “why” that article worked, and then try to figure out how you can duplicate the formula for yourself…
Chances are good that you will see my “Five Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing” in those articles that you are reviewing…
Fortunately, you don’t have to take my word for what I am telling you in this article… Whenever you find an article that moves you to visit the website shown in the Authors’ Resource Box, take another look at the article to see how closely it matches with the “Five Essential Elements” I shared with you in this article… You may be surprised by what you learn…
If you enjoyed this information, you will find that it just scratches the surface of what I have included in my article marketing ebook, “How To Use Article Marketing To Positively Impact Your SEO Efforts”, available for sale on my website, http://thephantomwriters.com/ My name is Bill Platt, and I have been involved in Article Marketing since early 2000. This article was excerpted in part, from the one shown here.
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
5 Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing
Read the original post:
5 Essential Elements of Successful Article Marketing
by Sage Lewis
American Express OPEN Forum has a good article on how to create a solid text marketing campaign. This gives you some good, concrete tips on how to get started.
Be sure and visit our small business news site.
Source:
How to Create a Text Marketing Campaign
I was on a call with a top copywriting expert yesterday who talked about the three words that will always make people give you their money.
It really made me think hard about the headlines I’d been using in my ads, email and even on twitter. This guy was talking about using curiosity as a driving force in your marketing.
Let’s name it curiosity marketing.
Before I give you the three words, let me explain a bit more about curiosity marketing, how people decide to buy things and how your headline and buyer keywords can tap into each step along the buyer’s decision making process.
Killer Headlines
For curiosity marketing to work really well, your headline is the one of the entry points into your sales funnel. Your sales funnel should mirror buyer decision-making processes, which we’ll talk about in a bit.
The headline needs to hit a number of buttons. It doesn’t always have to hit them all, so don’t make your headline needlessly complex. It needs to grab attention first and foremost.
If you were marketing on dog training, you might use a headline like “7 Free Tricks to Stop your Dog Barking”.
What makes this an effective ‘killer’ headline?
- Intrigue. The headline is kind of intriguing since you don’t say what those tricks are so people get curious and want to find out what those tricks are.
- Incentive. The information is “free”, which could remove one obstacle to someone taking a look. If you hook people up with a great deal, they like you and trust you more.
- A Solution. It offers a solution through use of the question “how” and the answer “tricks”.
- Tangible. The number ‘7′ adds something tangible and definite about what you’re offering.
- Targeted. The headline is focused on one specific problem, undesirable dog barking, so people searching specifically for help with this one problem, will be highly targeted prospects.
If you were into dog training or were a dog owner searching for a solution to why your dog won’t stop barking, you’d probably click on this, right?
Thus the point of your title is what? To take your visitor to the next step, which is to click your ad, open your email, visit your blog post, read your article.
What you do after they get to your page or blog or whatever comes next in your sales funnel, is partly on how you satisfy the original curiosity and sell them on the next step. (It’s kind of funny to think how the marriage analogy would go in those terms!)
The Buying Decision Process
At this point, you are not expecting someone to buy straight out. People buy from someone they know, like and trust.
Would you ask your girlfriend to move in with you after one date? You’d wine and dine her a few times, and ask after the relationship has developed over time. So now when you pop the question … she may surprise you – your most wanted response!
In marketing, your most wanted response at the start of the buying process is simply that targeted prospects click on your ad, open your email or click the link you give in twitter.
OK, so that got me thinking about what would work in our industry – marketing to the home business opportunity seeker. I’ve always known the importance of researching your buyer keywords.
In other words, you have to identify what people who are looking for a home business are actually looking for … and then draw them in using curiosity.
Identifying Buyer Keywords
The killer keywords are always the starting point of course. What is it that people looking for a business opportunity might be searching for – what solution are they looking for? What’s the problem or situation they want to resolve? What’s their most wanted outcome?
I think it was Perry Marshall who said if someone is out shopping for a drill, they are not searching for a drill they want a hole.
If someone is out searching for dog training, they most probably have a specific and immediate problem they are trying to resolve, like “my dog keeps barking every time we leave him alone in a room and it’s driving us mad, not to mention the complaints from the neighbours!”
Your headline still needs to be relevant to your target audience, but curiosity marketing is about taking people to the next step. How can you entice someone to take the next action step in your sales funnel and ultimately towards a buying decision?
Creating Your Sales Funnel
One approach I have found works really well for creating your sales funnel is to mirror the decision-making processes in your buying chain. In my game, I try to identify probable steps that someone looking for a home business would take.
Once you are clear about what is your ‘most wanted response’ from them at each step, you should be able to more easily identify both headlines and buyer keywords according to where a person has got to in making a decision to buy.
The first step in the sales funnel is to get people INTO your sales funnel. And this is where curiosity marketing to a targeted audience can be really effective.
You’re at the top end of the sales funnel where there is the most competition usually so you’re ad or email has to stand out in the crowd – in the search engine advertising or email inbox.
Throw in an incentive on the back of a curious headline and your click rates will soar. Offer your visitors valuable information – the 7 free tricks – and use curiosity to sell them on taking the next step into your sales funnel.
This next step might be to give you their contact details in exchange for your newsletter and/or a free report so you continue to provide them with useful information. As a follow up, you could offer a low cost product like a training guide or video bootcamp or perhaps a basic subscription.
There’s no limit to the length of your sales funnel. People who have bought on one step are your prime prospects. They are buyers.
Upsell – offer them your next product or an upgrade or extra related product. They are now buyers who like your information or your products and trust its value to them.
A buyer is a buyer is a buyer – Not sure whose quote that is (maybe Russell Brunson told me).
So curiosity marketing is all about taking people to the next step in the buying chain.
My headline on this article (and I’ll tweet and email on this too cos it’s fun!)
What three words will always make people give you their money?
Question: Who would I target this one at?
Answer: People looking for buyer keywords, marketing strategies, conversion tactics, sales training.
Oh, and I guess you want to know what are the three words, yes?
STICK ‘EM UP!
Jay Allyson – Online Entrepreneur & Home Business Coach – GetRichLifestyle.com
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Three Simple Words that Push People to Part with Their Cash
View post:
Three Simple Words that Push People to Part with Their Cash