Let’s face it. Most of us write articles in order to get traffic, to generate affiliate sales, and make money for our business. Whether you’re outsourcing your article marketing, or writing your own articles, creating a proper resource box is a requirement for successful advertising and selling through your articles.
Writing a unique, quality article (always avoid duplicate content…it’s spam and will never be an effective article marketing strategy) and including creative ideas will quickly establish you as an expert in your market. In article marketing, the resource box or author bio box comes at the end of your article and should include a call to action that compels your visitor to visit your link, generating new traffic and sales.
Any good article directory will allow you to include your resource box at the end of the article. You should not waste your time submitting articles to article directories that don’t allow resource boxes in the article body…you need a way to make contact with each reader who visits your article.
Let’s take a minute and discuss the most critical items that you want to include in any resource box in order to become an effective article marketer.
1. Your Author’s Name:
Different people take different approaches in their article writing. Some people like to take a very professional, corporate approach and share information on a very educational level. Others prefer to use a more conversational style English and create a friendship out of their readership. Regardless of which article submission approach you take, you want to be sure that every article submitted has this personalization element in it.
Whether you’re using a pen name or your own name, you should definitely set yourself up in your articles as an authority in your marketplace. Most article resource boxes in addition to having the name will also include some positive achievements to back up the credibility of the article written. Because of the way some directories create article titles, the article writer or authors name may appear in the title tag of the search engine results.
You may also want to include a brief bio in your article summary since it will often be part of the search engine description.
2. A Trackable Link:
I’m amazed at how many people write articles online and put direct backlinks to their websites with no way to actually track their clicks or eventually change that link to point to more effective content on their web site…a fact that will cost you dearly in the long run! A direct link sends your article traffic directly to your site without any tracking.
A tracking link can tell you how effective your article marketing is, how well your traffic is converting, and allow you in the future to point your traffic at a higher converting point in your website sales funnel. There are numerous companies and software products that allow you to create links that are trackable.
The best article editors understand the power of tracking their backlinks to get the most out of each targeted traffic click and are reaping the benefits of effective article marketing.
3. A Strong Call To Action:
Let’s face it…you intend for someone to read your article then take a very specific action. Whether you want them to buy products or to sign up for an e-mail list…whatever it might be, you intend for them to take action.
Why don’t you ask them to take that action in your article resource box? Too many times I see the author simply “beat around the bush” instead of directly coming out and saying “Here’s what I want you to do”, “Here’s the benefit to you”, and “Here’s where you need to go online to get started now”. It’s as simple as that, and strong call to actions result in much more targeted traffic and sales from your submitted article.
Don’t submit your article to be distributed online until you’ve clearly defined what you want the reader to do!
4. Keyword Rich Anchor Text:
This is probably one of the weakest areas for a majority of internet marketers and article marketers that I see. It’s probably the biggest reason why search engines love some articles and place them on the first page of the search engine results…while other articles are buried deep…rarely to be read.
You have the opportunity to get a one-way back link to your site, so why not make the most of this opportunity? If you are going to take the time writing articles, instead of putting your full URL, you need to be using anchor text that is specific to your keyword research findings…which will help your search engine optimization of your target website.
Article marketing is a fantastic way to build deep one way links to your site. Most article sites will allow you to post 2 to 3 links in the resource box. I encourage you to have it least some of those linking to other pages within your site, instead of just your homepage.
You can also use a strong call to action after the keyword so that you get a double purpose from this anchor text. (i.e. Home Health Care – Find An Agency Now)
These are just four simple things that you must include in your resource box before you submit articles for distribution.
These inclusions will greatly improve your chances for success using article marketing, and will greatly increase the profits and money you create from article marketing.
There are also search engine optimization benefits when you properly submit articles with good, keyword rich anchor text. Don’t submit a single article until you make sure all of the above things are properly in place.
The difference in including this information in your articles and not having it may well be the key to effective article marketing!
Enjoy and Prosper!
Jack Duncan