The submission of articles to the article banks is a well known method of generating traffic. While you may not accomplish much in the near future by learning how to write and submit articles, knowing how can serve you for a long time and is well worth the effort of learning and using to your greatest benefit. Though you may not feel up to writing Moby Dick because you don’t have any writing ability but you are likely wrong. You can provide information about your website and your products because you know exactly what they are. All that is necessary is that you know the rules for effective article writing. Of most importance is the headline or title. This MUST have key words relating to your website and your products. The first thing that eZine publishers or other website owners look at when deciding to publish your article are the key words in the title because they know that the search engines look at those.
* Note: The way people find products or information on the internet is by the use of search engines. These people use key words to find what they want by entering them into the search box and clicking “Search”. One such search may be for “car parts” or “car tires”. What is returned by the search engine is based on whatever key words the searcher used.
Your article title or headline MUST grab the reader’s attention. Simply using a title of “Making Money” probably won’t do. The title must grab the reader by the throat and not let him go. It must make the reader want to keep reading. “Making Money Online”… well, not very good either. How about “Making Money Online in Your Houseshoes” or “Making a Bundle Online Before Breakfast”. Something to capture the reader’s attention if they are interested in making money on the internet.
After the title, the next most important words in your article are in the first line. Experienced internet surfers are well known for having a short attention span and rarely read anything word for word unless it is information that they think will meet their needs, solve a problem they have or make life better for them. So…the title…and the first line become the bait and the hook that is used to lure the reader to truly read the complete article. If the first line contains the key words it must also be be attention getting. “The customers were begging for more tips after the first line!” If you were an internet marketer, wouldn’t you keep reading?
One more thing about your articles is that they need to be short if you intend to submit them to article banks. Very short! No more than 400 words but closer to 300 words would be more appropriate. Sometimes we can get carried away and all of a sudden have an article that is 1000 words or more. This can happen if you are writing about a subject in which you are interested and knowledgeable about. When this happens just break a long article down into a couple of shorter articles.
Short sentences and short paragraphs will keep the reader’s attention better than long wordy sentences or paragraphs. Your article should be a joy to read.
Take it easy on those exclamation points. One exclamation point is all that is necessary to indicate importance or excitement… half a dozen are just rude.
The resource box at the end of your article is the most important part to you. E-zine publishers or website owners who download and reproduce your article are required to include your resource box. For best results this box must contain your full name, contact information and, above all, a link to your website. This link is what is going to help increase traffic for you.
Warning! Do NOT word-wrap your url! It must be typed out in full, http://www.whatever.com. Not all E-zine editors send out their newsletters and E-zines using email programs that support word-wrapped links so it is possible to ruin your own purpose by word-wrapping your website url.
Submitting Articles: Once you have found article banks and article repositories on the Internet by simple doing a search using your favorite search engine it is time to submit your articles. Every site has their own guidelines for accepting articles which you must follow or risk rejection.
Software is available for use in automatically submitting articles to the article repositories and banks. The problem here is that most of the larger, more effective repositories and banks will not publish automated submissions. So even though this software can save time when submitting to smaller sites, this doesn’t help much with the bigger more well known sites.
Yes, submitting articles is time consuming and tedious (not to mention boring) work but it is work that can provide your site with a lot of targeted traffic. Each person who reads an article that you have written will also be exposed to the link to your site. If the article is good and if it provides good information, these people will visit your site. They may buy what you are selling or they may opt-in to your mailing list… or maybe they will do both. By the way, there are services that will do article submissions for you. Of course this is a paid service.
The best solution and one I use is Unique Article Wizard. UAW can submit unique articles to hundreds of eZine publishers at the push of a button. Spend a few hours creating your article, Push Submit, sit back, and watch the traffic to your site increase astronomically.