What Harry Potter Taught Me About Writing An Article Series…

Harry Potter Dog at Barnes and Noble

Every once in a while when you’re doing article marketing you may feel extra inspired and get it into your head that you’d like to do an article series.

What’s an article series?

An article series is a group of articles on a related specific theme. All the articles in the grouping compliment each other, but each article can also stand alone and make complete sense if viewed by itself.

If you’re doing an article series, the natural inclination is to break it into parts, indicating Part 1, Part 2, etc in the title, but as I told you previously, breaking your articles into “parts” is a definite no-no .

Remember, when you’re doing article marketing, it’s not a given that a publisher will pick up every single one of your articles, so you have to make each article be able to stand on it’s own.

Having your articles listed as Part 1, Part 2, etc, decreases the chances of your article getting picked up for publication, and it also may decrease the likelihood of someone reading one of your parts that they find separate from the others.

It’s sort of like going to the movies–if you see a movie that says “Part 4″, and you haven’t even seen movies 1-3, chances are you’ll want to watch the original movie before watching any of the sequels. This is just human nature–if there is an obvious sequence in place, we like to do things in order.

So if readers find your Part 7 article all by its lonesome self, and they haven’t read parts 1-6, they may pass on Part 7 thinking that they will be coming into the middle of the movie and won’t understand.

Also, what if an ezine editor liked your Part 7 and wanted to show just that articles to her subscribers?

Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)

What To Do If You’re Itching To Write An Article Series…

Red Duck Line up
Originally uploaded by Maxey

Sometimes folks will send in an email like this:

"I want to write a 7 part article series. How can I get viewers to read all 7 parts of my series and not just one article? Should I put "Part 1", "Part 2", etc in the title? Should I put a note in my resource box telling the reader to look for my other articles in the series? Should I put a note in my article telling them that there are other parts they should go and find?"

These are all excellent questions, and I think it's natural for anyone who has a lot of information to convey on a particular topic to get the urge to write an article series now and then.

It's just fine to do a series of articles, but you have to do it in a strategic way (which we'll go over later).

For now, I just want to make clear…

Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)

How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing….The Series Wrap Up!

Image number 10

All this month we've been exploring 10 Ways to Sabotage Your Article Marketing…and What to Do About It, and WOW, we're finally finished!

We've just reached our whirlwind conclusion, and here's the wrap up of the 10 ways to sabotage your article marketing:

1. Lack of Submissions 

 2. Act Like a Salesman 

3. Bombard Publishers with Articles 

4. The Last Minute Resource Box 

5. Give Up Just As You're Getting Started 

6. Phone In Your Content

7. Slap On A Lackluster Title 

8. Write Off-Topic Articles 

9. Run Out of Stuff To Write About 

10. Go Keyword Crazy 

So, now that we've got this all out in the open, let me ask you:

• Did you find these posts helpful?

• Can you think of any other ways that we unwittingly sabotage our article marketing campaigns?

• Did any one of these hit home with you more than the others? 

Go Keyword Crazy: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #10

Horse and buggy under autumn tree, near Salem
Originally uploaded by jerryhobbs

This is the thrilling conclusion of the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

We're all in the same boat here–all of us are at various stages of learning how to market and drive traffic to our websites.

If you're like most folks, when you first start marketing your website you probably didn't have any idea about any of the SEO stuff, such as keywords. 

Then after a while, you learned what keywords are and what their purpose is, and you got the general impression that you're supposed to be using keywords in your website and in your article marketing campaign.

Perhaps you've overheard bits and pieces of information, such as "use your keywords in your articles to attract Google's attention" and "putting your keywords in your titles is extra effective."

And then you take that information and try to do the best you can with it.

No one can blame you for that–even the most experienced SEO junkie is constantly learning, constantly trying to figure out how things work. 

But I have to tell you, I see more articles than I'd like to admit that look like they've been peppered with a keyword machine gun, with keywords just sprayed throughout the title, the article body and the resource box with no attention to the writing quality and educational content.

This is not what you're going for!  

When it comes to keywords, balance it the key. 

Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)

Run Out Of Stuff To Say: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #9

10-SM28823_wasil
Originally uploaded by wasil_uderscore

This is Part 9 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

You may have been running strong with your first few articles, coming up with ideas for your articles pretty easily, but I think pretty much everyone at some point runs into a writing inspiration brick wall that has us saying:

"Um, I think I've written about everything I can possibly write about in my niche."

And this is when an author does one of the following:

a) Gives up

b) Starts writing off topic articles (and we know that that is a no-no!)

c) Finds a way to tap into a limitless supply of article ideas

Let's choose option "c", shall we?

Yes, our imaginations run thin every now and then, and no, it isn't easy to come up with article ideas sometimes, but I promise you–no matter what the topic of your website, you can always generate new and interesting ideas for articles IF you follow these guidelines…

Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)

Write Off-Topic Articles: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #8

Browncoat Ball: Shall We Dance?
Originally uploaded by ZiggyB

This is Part 8 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

Every now and then someone will write in saying that they are not seeing the results they were hoping for with article marketing, and they’d like some feedback as to where they could be going wrong.

Then I look at their list of articles and start wondering,

“Hmmm, were all of these articles written to drive traffic back to the same website?”

You see, some of the articles are on the topic of “stereo systems” and others are on the topic of “ballroom dancing” and then others are on the topic of “parenting”.

I check the resource boxes and sure enough–all of the articles are trying to drive traffic back to the same website…a website that sells stereo systems.

What is wrong with this picture?

When you’re trying to get a grip on what you should write your articles about and why it’s so important to stick to a certain topic, it helps to start with the basics.

First, let’s refresh our memories about why we’re actually doing article marketing in the first place:

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Slap On A Lackluster Title: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #7

failed job interview
Originally uploaded by Which Witch

This is Part 7 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

You are submitting articles consistently. [check!]

You are writing articles that serve your readers and please publishers.[check!]

Your resource box is sticky and lures readers to your site. [check!]

You've created some really superb content in your articles. [check!] 

Yay for you , but what if you're not getting as much traffic from your articles to your website as you would like?  

Whenever someone asks me what one thing they can do to take things up a notch with their articles, I've got just 2 words for them:

Your TITLES!

Imagine you're going to a job interview.

You may be extremely qualified, inventive, creative, a real team player, but if you do not present yourself in such a way that you stick out from the other applicants, you'll just be looked over.

In a way, every article that you write has to pass a job interview–it will be judged from the outside first, and a reader's first impression will determine whether they want to take a closer look. 

With your articles, your title is your first opportunity to stand out from the crowd.

The truth is that you can have an absolutely breathtaking article and an enticing and irresistible resource box, but it your title is totally ho-hum, then you won't see the traffic you're looking for.

Why?

Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)

Phone In Your Content: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #6

(294) Phoning it in
Originally uploaded by Sarajea

This is Part 6 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

Article marketing is where art, craft and technology meet.

When we think of SEO and technology, we sometimes think that things are super-complicated, that you need to think like a machine, but actually that couldn't be further from the truth! 

Your ability to write a thoughtful article is much more crucial to your success than understanding the technical stuff surrounding article marketing.

Surprisingly though, sometimes the area where people slip up the most has nothing to do with technology, but involves more the "art" and "craft" part of the equation. Instead of producing well-written educational articles, folks can fall into the habit of phoning in content. 

To determine if you've fallen into this trap, let's look at the 2 areas where "phoning in" of content occurs:

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Give Up Just As You’re Getting Started: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #5

This is Part 5 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

We all LOVE immediate gratification, don't we?

This is why we start workout programs, hit the gym hard for a few days in a row, and then look in the mirror expecting to suddenly look like:

a) Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his "Terminator" days OR

b) Linda Hamilton back in her "Terminator 2" days (remember her arms?)

And then when we see that we still look very much the same way we did at the beginning of the week, we get frustrated, think "Ugh, this is taking too long!", and then promptly eat 3 slices of pizza and a hot fudge sundae.  

Yes, most of us (myself included!) do have a tendency to want to see immediate results with anything we do, and this includes article marketing.  

One of the most common reasons why folks don't see the results they were hoping for with article marketing is giving up too soon after expecting results immediately.

I just want to be up front with you about what you can expect with Article Marketing as far as the time frame goes:
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The Last Minute Resource Box: How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing #4

This is Part 4 in the 10 part series How To Sabotage Your Article Marketing…And What To Do About It!

I think it's safe to say that we've all been there–

You've just finished writing your article.

You're excited to get it submitted and out to the publishers.

You login to your account at SubmitYOURArticle.com and start entering your article into the article submission page (or you go to an article directory to manually submit your article there), and lo and behold you're asked to fill in the Resource Box field.  At this point many folks think:

"Doh! I forgot about that part. It's just a little author bio–no biggie. I can just come up with a Resource Box on the spot and get that part out of the way so I can finally submit my article."

Then, as I have done in the past, and as many others have done and are still doing, you throw together a Last Minute Resource Box and proceed on your merry way toward the "submit" button.

HALT!!!!

STOP!

Wait a sec!

Little do you know that you've just sashayed over perhaps THE most important part of your article submission–and it's not even part of your article!
Read more… | Article Distribution Service (SubmitYOURArticle.com)