Your article marketing strategy will be successful if you can write quality content and get people to share it. These five tips should help you get started.
Start by defining your audience. You should write articles on topics your target audience wants to read about and use a tone they can relate to. As you write more articles, you should keep track of which ones are the most popular among your audience so you can write more articles on this topic or use the same format again. Do not hesitate to experiment with different formats: you could write interviews, top 10 lists, use pictures or videos, record a podcast of your article or sum up the information in an info-graphic.
Write new articles on a regular basis. You should have a couple of new articles every week: plan your topics ahead of time if necessary, but be ready to write articles in a hurry if a major news item related to your industry becomes popular. You should include links to your previous articles, related pages or to external sites when it is relevant to do so. If you do not want to direct your traffic to external sites, include links to pages where you have back-links to some of your content.
Your articles should be central to your social media marketing efforts and to your newsletter. Think of your weekly articles as quality content you can share with your audience. Share links to your latest articles on social networks and encourage people to comment on these updates by asking them for their opinion. If you write fun and original content, your readers will be more likely to share your articles with their friends. Keep track of which articles are shared the most and create more similar content. You should also include some of these articles in your monthly newsletter: perhaps you could keep a few articles for the release of your newsletter and feature your most popular articles of the month.
Do more research about article directories and submit your articles to the directories your target audience uses. All the articles you submit should contain links to more content on your site or blog. Some directories will let you set up a profile: use your real name and encourage readers to contact you or visit your site for more information on the topic you are writing about. This is a good way to develop a reputation as an expert on your topic. You should also submit your content to webmasters, bloggers and magazine editors who target a similar niche. Your content will be accepted by these people if you are recognized as an expert on your topic. You should also think about participating with online encyclopedias, message boards and sites such as Yahoo Answers to share links to some of your articles and keep looking for new ways to share your content.
Apply these tips to develop a good article marketing strategy. You should be able to reach out to your audience and establish a reputation as an expert if you apply yourself and write quality articles on topics your audience is interested in.