Article marketing can be an amazinginly powerful tool, but it all comes down to the quality of the articles that you have. They need to be at a high enough caliber that people are engaged in them and respect your thoughts and abilities. To get there, use the tips below when developing new articles.
When writing new articles, keep to your niche and aim for 500 to 1,000 words. Article marketing is all about building trust through thought leadership, and if you publish content that you are insecure on, especially content outside of your niche, it can have the opposite effect than you are looking for. People may wonder about the relevance of your overall content to their needs and your capability to be a professional resource for them. As well, keeping your article lengths to between 500 and 1,000 words helps guarantee that your article is long enough to hold value for the reader, while short enough to perform well in the multi-focused, fast-paced world of the Internet.
Write compelling titles and introductory paragraphs. As mentioned, the Internet is a fast-paced, highly competitive medium, where reader interest can be as quick as a mouse click. You only have a few seconds to make an impression in any article you write, so you need to grab it in your title and the first few sentences of your introduction. If you don’t engage your readers here, the chances are they will surf away from your content within just a few seconds. Keep your title and introduction relevant (it’s important for search engine optimization), but don’t be afraid to push the envelope.
Use short paragraphs and small words. This is not a statement on the education level of your readers, this is a statement on the medium itself. The Internet performs the best when content is easy to read and quick to digest. There are many reasons for this. Screens are harder to read for extended periods than paper. The screen only lets you see so much content at any given time. It’s an image-driven medium that prefers soundbyte-like sentence structures than long-form writing. The list goes on. No matter what reason, make it easy for your readers to enjoy your writing. Keep it simple.
Re-read your work; never publish with spelling and grammar errors. Yes, everyone has a spelling mistake every once in a while, but they are not all publishing articles to build trust! You need to take away any reason a potential customer could have to not trust you or your product. If you didn’t bother reading your article, you may be lazy, and therefore not worthy of their time. Make sure this thought process doesn’t happen. If you don’t trust yourself to catch the errors, ask a friend, colleague or family member to read over your work. Don’t trust solely in your word processing software, as it is not foolproof, especially when it comes to grammar issues.
Applying these tips to your articles will give you the best quality work possible. This, in turn, will build your readership and ultimately your customer-base. So what are you waiting for? Get started today on making your content as great as it can be.