Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

Here I want to share with you, what I have learned after generating over a million hits to my articles and how anyone can get great targeted traffic and enjoy article marketing success...

Quality

If you are writing an article you need to have quality material that's interesting and informative. There are a lot of people who will write you an article for $5 - 10 and there of no use to you, as the reader will soon see the material is poor and never click through. Ideally, write the article yourself and if you want to use a professional writer, then make sure their experienced in your field of expertise.

2 x Versions

Create two versions of the same article, this won't take you much longer than doing one. You simply keep the same topic and edit a second article form the first and change the headline. I can write an article in about 30 - 45 minutes and edit the same one in about 15, so 2 x articles should take you no more than an hour to write.

The first article is the one you want the search engines to pick up and rate and choose the best article directory for the field that you are writing in. Different directories rate higher or lower on different subjects and don't always assume the bigger the directory the higher it rates. Submit the article and then point links at. The more high quality links you have pointing at the article the better, so bookmark it and blog it.

The second article can be used to get traffic from the rest of the directories.

Submissions

When doing directory submissions forget about quantity, again go for quality.

You can submit to hundreds of directories - but it's simply not worth the time and effort, for the results you get back.

There are thousand of directories but only around 100 are worth bothering with.

I have spent considerable time building lists that only consist of about 30 directories - but I know they will pull significant traffic on my theme. For example, I have one directory with an Alexa ranking outside the top 100,000 yet it will give me as many hits, as directories in the top 5,000 on several subjects!

It's very much a question of trial and error, simply submit to a directory and see how it performs on your subject.

Headline

You Headline needs to be keyword rich at the start and punchy, to grab your readers attention. A long headline is better than a shorter one; it gives the search engine spider something to bite on and gives enough words for you to entice readers.

Format

The longer an article is (and I often see articles of 1,000 words or more) the more chance the reader will be distracted, get bored and click way. The ideal length is around 550 words and no more than 750.

Keep your teaser text short and to the point. All it needs to do is to tell them why they should read your article - you don't need any of the article content in it.

When you write the article do NOT use long paragraphs - people find this intimidating and will click away. Keep paragraphs to six sentences or less and break up the article, with eye catching sub heads and bullet points.

You must make your article easy to read, as they have to get to the resource box!

When you come to the concluding paragraph, start to pre close them to your site. For example, you can tell them of other articles you have written on related subjects and they will assume they are on your site and click through.

Resource Box

Make sure you have a headline which has a benefit to the reader and use the text to tell them exactly what they are going to get at your site.

Article readers want information, so free Pdf's are always good. Your resource box is your advert, so use it wisely. Stress the benefits of what you do and always have a high perceived free offer they can take advantage of.

Click Through Rates

Many article directories tell you how many people have clicked through to your site from your article and as a general rule, you should be getting at least 10% and preferably a 20% click through.

Article marketing is one of the most effective ways of getting targeted traffic and I hope the enclosed tips help you achieve article marketing success.

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