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Article Marketing - Your Vital Strategy For Success

By Paul Hooper-Kelly

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 16May2007 Word count: 830 Viewed: 243 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Many people are, quite rightly, attracted to writing articles as a cost effective way of getting traffic. But to get the greatest mileage out of your article writing, you need to be aware of this golden rule.

Because your article is designed for one purpose only -- to attract quality traffic to your web site -- it has to be created from start to finish to invisibly "sell" the benefit to the reader of visiting your web site. And the way to do this is treat it not as an article but as a piece of very subtle copy writing. Note the adjective "subtle", because -- being an article -- you can't make it a blatant, unashamed sales letter, which will invariably be rejected by any decent article bank. Instead, you do this.

You use the subtle psychological ploys all good copywriters know. You see, there are certain buttons in the human psyche which, when pressed, practically compel the reader to do what you want, and here's an example.

You've probably heard copywriters use the acronym, AIDA, as the framework for their copy writing. AIDA stands for: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. So let's see how they can be subtly applied to article writing.

Getting your reader's attention. When you post your article on an article bank, it will inevitably be jockeying for attention with many other articles. So you must give a great deal of thought to your article title, because it is -- in effect -- the headline of your sales copy. And, in copy writing, the headline is reckoned to be about 80% of the whole deal. It's that important, and here's why.

Because, if the headline (or, in the case of your article, the title) fails to literally reach out and get the reader by the throat, they will never see the rest of your carefully crafted piece. An example of this is the headline at the top of this article. It creates curiosity, because when someone reads that title, they invariably want to know what this "vital strategy for success" is, in case they are not using it. The psychological button you have pressed is a powerful one. Fear of loss is far greater than thought of gain. So they stop and read the article, in case they miss out on some key piece of information. Want proof it works?

Well, you're reading this, aren't you? And here's a great tip for you.

Because the title is so important, here's a trick of the copywriter's trade: write as many variations of your title as you can think of. Then put them away and come back a day or so later and whittle it down to the very best. If you end up with more than one really good one, split test it by using a different title for two or more article banks and monitor the response.

Once you have the reader's attention, you must then move on to the second of the four stages, generating interest. You do this by crafting an intriguing, teasing opening paragraph, leading on from the promise made in the headline. Then, if the article bank requires an article summary or "teaser", use that first paragraph, because it will be the very best teaser you can devise.

A good example of how to lead the reader seamlessly from the opening, "teaser" paragraph, into the body of the article is the first paragraph I've used in this article. It ends with the mention of a "golden rule". Consequently, the reader is compelled to move on to the next paragraph. This copywriter's psychological trigger is called the "fire bucket" technique, after those old movies, where they form a chain to pass buckets of water along to put out the fire. Let's see how I did that.

Here's some of the endings and beginnings of previous paragraphs.

Instead, you do this. (this leads to the next paragraph, which starts:) You use the subtle psychological ploys . . .

. . . and here's an example. (this leads to the next paragraph, which starts:) You've probably heard . . .

. . . It's that important, and here's why. (this leads to the next paragraph, which starts:) Because, if the . . .

Get the idea?

You carry on like this for about 400 words, giving useful information, which, due to the length limitations of the article, cannot be totally complete. But, provided you have imparted quality information, you should have now generated the third part of AIDA -- desire to learn more.

Now you come to the article writer's equivalent of the "Buy now" button -- the second "A" of AIDA, which is the Action. In this case, the action you are asking the reader to take is simply to visit your web site, rather than give their credit card a whack. Nevertheless, you still have to "sell" the idea just as skillfully as if you were asking for a couple of thousand bucks. So how do you do that?

Well, uncharacteristic modesty prevents me from daring to suggest the box below is a good example.

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