I don’t have a website, but I do have an article that I would like to write and get published on other websites. I’m sort of new at this, and I want to get better. Could you tell me if what I want to do is possible?

Answer:

Generally, people who do article marketing do so to drive traffic to a website. So, it would be a little unconventional to do it if you didn’t have any sort of website you were hoping to lure readers to, but it’s not unheard of.

Often times when we’re thinking about article marketing, we only think about driving traffic to a website, but there are other perks as well.

One of the main reasons why people do article marketing (besides trying to drive traffic to a website) is establishing yourself as an expert in your niche. If you had an article you wanted to be viewed on other websites, you could submit it as a free reprint article and then it would be likely that publishers would pick it up.

Article marketing is not just about Google–there are benefits to being regarded as an expert in your niche that have nothing to do with search engine ranking.

For example, as a result of my own article marketing efforts, I now have articles (on article marketing) published on a regular basis in at least one offline magazine circulated to hundreds of paying subscribers.

This has the obvious effect of immediately identifying me in those subscribers’ minds as an expert in my niche. Several customers have come to me via this route (I know because they told me), and this reputation as an expert has also opened up various joint venture opportunities with additional advantages for my business.

The main thing I would ask you is this: “What do you hope to accomplish by getting your article published on different websites?”

If your goal is to establish yourself as an expert, then article marketing is a good choice.

One caveat though:

You will still need to submit articles consistently–one or two articles is not going to cut it. If you want to be regarded as an expert in your niche, you still need to submit articles to the same extent as someone who has the goal of driving traffic to a website.

I would encourage you though–if you do have business, it would be a great idea to make a website. That would ensure that you were getting the maximum benefit from article marketing.

This allows publishers to sign up to our network, add any number of ‘Publishing Nodes’ (eg. email addresses, article directories), set categories, decide how many articles they want to receive per day, and so on. They can even Pause and later Resume article submissions.

It’s all designed to further grow our distribution network by helping to both attract and retain publishers to our network.

It provides full facilities for our publishers so that they can effectively manage what they receive from us … full details here

If you haven’t already, why not sign up as a publisher yourself and get regular quality content you can publish as and when you wish? Plus it’s all for free – go here now:

https://secure.submityourarticle.com/publishers

More exciting facilities will be added in the coming weeks … let me know what you think.

(Oh, if you’re already on our email publisher list, just enter your email on the Recover Password page, and you’ll get log in details sent to you).

Some things you need to keep in mind as you’re writing your articles are:

• People have shorter attention spans when they are reading things online. You need to catch someone’s attention relatively quickly.

• People have more options for clicking away. They tend to bounce around from site to site, quickly searching for the information that they’re looking for or that catches their attention.

• Computer monitors are not easy on the eyes. Even if a person wanted to, it is just not that easy to read loads of information on the internet.

With this in mind, here are 10 ways to make your articles web-friendly:

1) Your title should be succinct and tell exactly what your article is about.

Avoid metaphors and clever puns. Remember, a reader is scanning your article title to see if they want to read your article. The easier you make it for a reader to determine the topic of your article, the better.

Can the reader get a good idea what your article is about by reading the first 3 words? That is something to shoot for.

Also remember that some article directories have length limits on titles–another great reason to keep the title from being overly long.

2) Present your main point right out of the starting gate.

When writing your introductory paragraph, get straight to the point. This is a work in progress for many of us who like to wax poetic, but it’s just a matter of disciplining yourself not to ramble, especially at the beginning of your article.

3) Use a word count goal.

If you don’t use a word count goal, the article can very easily get away from you. You might choose to aim for a word count somewhere between 400-800 words. This will help you write with more focus and discipline. You are not just writing indefinitely–you are placing limits on the amount of information you can include and that will help you get straight to the point.

4) Use short paragraphs.

As much as possible, keep paragraphs short and sweet. More line breaks give the reader’s eyes a chance to rest, and it helps a person read your article more easily.

5) Use sub-headings.

The more you can guide a reader through your article, the better. Sub-headings are a great way to delineate sections and topics in your article so that the reader can skim and easily follow the information in your article. Sub-headings should stand apart from the other sentences in your article.

Here’s how:

USE CAPITAL LETTERS IN YOUR SUB-HEADING

OR…

Use Capital Letters Just For the First Letter Of Each Word

OR…

*Put A Star (Asterisk) Before Your Sub-Heading

OR…

=> Put an arrow in front of your sub-heading.

(You can create an arrow by pressing the “equals” key (=) and then the “greater than” key (>)

Also, be sure that your sub-heading has a blank line above and below it–that makes it easier to see.

6) Include list elements.

Lists are hugely popular on the internet, probably because they are easy to skim. An article can contain list elements in the form of steps in a how-to article, or an actual “Top Tips” or “Top Mistakes” type of article.

7) Choose your links carefully.

Multiple links in an article can be distracting, so keep the links to a minimum. Remember, the main link you want the reader to click is the link in your resource box, rather than links in the article.

8 ) Put links after the 3rd paragraph.

Avoid putting links at the beginning of your article–it is distracting. If you must include a link save it for after the 3rd paragraph, when readers have had a chance to get into your article. Also something to consider: Some article directories will decline articles that have links in the first 3 paragraphs.

9) Your article is not a term paper.

Readers are not expecting you to provide every last detail about your topic in every article. When you’re writing articles, think “bite sized morsels” rather than “doctoral thesis”. Choose a subject that is manageable enough to cover in a medium sized article (800 words or less) and include as much information as you can. Provide a good chunk of valuable and unique information in your article, and let the reader click through to your website if they have additional questions. Remember, your article is the appetizer, and your website is the main course.

10) Edit, edit, edit!

Review your article and remove/edit any sentences that are redundant, rambling, or awkward.  This is where your word count goal is extra helpful–it’s much easier to decide to give a sentence the ax if you’re forcing yourself to stay within a certain word count.  Every word must earn a place in your article.

Conclusion

In a way, writing for the web requires much more discipline than offline writing. The idea is to quickly catch the reader’s attention, make your article as easy to read as possible, provide valuable information in your article, and also leave them wanting more.

In fact, writing from scratch is something that I try to avoid.

Here’s what I do:

Sometimes when I get an idea for an article, I write down a makeshift title, jot some notes on the topic, and then stash it away for a rainy day when I need to write an article.

This is like an article skeleton–just the bare bones of an idea to be developed later.

This takes an immense amount of pressure off of the writing process–when my writing day arrives, if I’m stumped for something to write about, I look at my folder of “skeletons” hoping to find something that will inspire me.

And then–JOY!

I open a file and find that the article main points are already in there, a head start!

Do you stash writing ideas like this?

Right now I have about 50 article skeletons– Sometimes I will just type in the title and leave the body blank if I don’t really have an idea of how to start. Then I’ll save it and just use the title to jumpstart a new article.

But the real treasure is opening up a draft to find that the article is already started, with either points listed or an intro paragraph.

It’s daunting to start out looking at a white page–it saves so much mental energy to start off with the article skeleton already in place.

Today I got on a roll and created 4 article skeletons in about 20 minutes–very satisfying!

It doesn’t take much time when your mind has got that creative momentum going, and there’s no pressure to come up with anything resembling a finished article.

What do you think– Will you try this “article skeleton” technique?

Photo by perpetualplum

In fact, in Article Marketing, the resource box is the reason for the article!

The article is where you give, providing helpful information for your readers, and then the resource box is where you “take”–you get to tell a little about yourself , give a link to your website, and also try to convince people to visit your site.

The article is not an end in itself–in addition to being a way of sharing educational information with your readers, your article is a vehicle for building links and funneling visitors into your website.

So, don’t forget to spend time on your resource box and be sure that you aren’t making any of the most common mistakes:

Mistake #1 : A resource box that only contains a link and nothing else. Here is the info you should include in your resource box:

• an author name
• a little bio info
• a reason to click through to your website
• a link to your website

Mistake #2 : Too long URL in a text resource box (over 60 Characters). When your URL is over 60 characters, you have an increased chance of the link breaking in a text resource box. As a solution, you may choose to link to a top level domain (which should be shorter) for a text resource box, and reserve the longer URLs for an HTML resource box.

Mistake #3 : Not formatting your URL properly in the text resource box–it has to have http:// at the beginning and .com at the end. So, a properly formatted URL would look like this: http://www.submityourarticle.com

Mistake #4 : Not giving any author bio info. At its heart, the resource box is an author bio. Some publishers will outright decline an article that has a resource box with no author bio, and readers certainly appreciate a little bit of info about the author. It also gives you a chance to convince the reader that you are indeed an expert on this topic and your information can be trusted. Including author bio info helps establish your expertise.

Mistake #5 : Not mentioning your author name. Do include your name! If you’re more of a staff writer for your company and don’t want to focus the attention on you, then at least include your business name.

Mistake #6 : No reason to click through. It is not enough just to give a link to your website and expect the reader to take it from there–you need to encourage the reader to click through to your site by giving them a reason to click. Why should someone go to your website? What do you have to offer them there? A free report? More information on this topic? Be sure to offer some sort of reason to click the link in your resource box.

Mistake #7 : No link! Article marketing is effective at driving traffic to a website, and an essential ingredient is the link in your resource box. The link is the doorway to your website. The link is what Google will see when it’s establishing the authority of your website and adjusting search engine rankings. The link is the reason why you’re submitting the article, so don’t forget to put it in your resource box.

Mistake #8 : Too many links! Pick one or two strategic spots that you’d like to drive traffic to or build links to (such as your home page and the page where you offer a free report where people can sign up for your list), and leave it at that. No need to put a link to every site you own! Know that the more sites you link to, the more confusing it is for a reader to figure out which site to go to (most people will not click every link in your resource box if you have several).

Mistake #9 : Trying to put italics or bold in your URL. That can mess up the link and cause it to break. Don’t try to get fancy–it’s not necessary to bold, underline or italicize the link.

Mistake #10 : Providing too much contact info. I call this “business card syndrome”, where your resource box looks more like a business card than an author bio. No need to include phone number, email address, fax number, and your mailing address. Just put your website URL. If someone wants to contact you, they should be able to go to your website and find that info. Don’t take up valuable space in your resource box giving extra forms of contact. As a form of contact, a link to your website is enough.

Mistake #11 Putting punctuation directly after your URL. Avoid adding punctuation immediately after the URL, such as a comma or a full stop (period), as this can create problems on certain web sites when they automatically convert the URL into an active link.

Mistake #12 : Not testing out your links! Be sure to preview your article and test the links in your resource box. Just click them and be sure that they are going where you want them to go. We all have the ability to make typos, so you want to discover that before you submit your article.

Mistake #13 : HTML resource box: just having hyperlinked keywords and nothing else. The HTML resource box should include the same level of information as a text resource box (all the info I listed in Mistake #1).

Mistake #14 : HTML resource box: forgetting to hyperlink your written out URL. An HTML resource box pre-supposes that you are hyplinking anchor text–you are choosing which words to link to your site. If you include a written out URL (http://www.SubmitYOURArticle.com), you need to specify you want that hyperlinked too. If you do not, then a link will not be formed.

Mistake #15 : HTML resource box: using too many words as anchor text. Limit your anchor text to 3 words (if you are targeting long tail keywords you may end up hyperlinking up to 5 words), but keep in mind that some publishers have limits on how many words you can use as anchor text, and if you go over 3 the article may be declined.

Mistake #16 : HTML resource box: Hyperlinking your name or business name. With an HTML resource box, the idea is to hyperlink your keywords, rather than your name or business name.

Mistake #17 : HTML resource box: Not hyperlinking any keywords at all, but just your URL. The benefit of the HTML resource box is in hyperlinking your keywords. If you just hyperlink your URL, you might as well skip the HTML resource box and just use a text resource box.

How Did You Do?
Most likely, you have made at least some of these mistakes before–I know I have!

I hope that this article catches some of you before you make these mistakes so you can avoid the “Ugh! No, I didn’t just do that!” feeling.

Either way–live and learn ! We all make mistakes, especially when learning something new. So, if any of these have hit home, just resolve to make the correction next time. You have plenty more articles where you can create powerhouse resource boxes.

Additional Resources

How To Create A Resource Box: The Ultimate Guide

5 Ways To Be Sure That Your Resource Box Links Work

Are You Making One Of These 7 HTML Resource Box Slip-Ups?

Photo by swisscan

Question:

For SEO purpose, do you suggest we write one article per keyword, or are we able to write multiple articles per keyword with the same effectiveness?

Answer:

When you you want to write articles targeting specific keywords, I would use this model:

1) Do your keyword research before you start writing articles.

2) Then just cycle through your keyword list, focusing an article on one keyword phrase at a time until you go through your list.

3) Then start again at the beginning, and go through the list again (and again, and again…)

4) Be sure to update your keyword list every so often, because that information changes.

This approach is a good way to dominate your niche on the search engines, and ultimately, the more content you have out there for specific keywords, the more likely it is that at least one of your content pieces are going to show up for those searches.

I hope that helps!

Photo by ul Marga

That saves bunches of time–your previous piece of content serves as an outline and source of research for your article, so you don’t have to spend time thinking up a new topic and points to cover.

But how do you re-work a blog post or some other piece of content you have to create a unique article?

I bounce my articles off of my blog posts every month, so I’m happy to give you some pointers:

1) Don’t try to go line by line rephrasing things–that makes it too easy to duplicate the original content of yours.

2) Instead, read back over your blog post and jot down the main points. Don’t copy whole sentences or anything, just a quickly jot down the main points of the article.

3) Then, using the notes you’ve jotted, start fleshing out the article. Do not look back at the original piece–if you do it is too tempting to start copying parts.

4) Remember that you can take a different approach in your article –your blog post may be in essay form, but your article could be a Top 5 List or a Top 15 List.

5) Do not try to re-work a previously submitted article–this re-working process is for content of yours that is in different forms, like blog posts and content on your website. It is perfectly fine to get ideas from previously submitted articles and to write new articles that go deeper or take different approaches to the same topic, but you should not take an article that you’ve submitted and try to create a different variation of the same article. Each article you submit should be unique and fresh and should not re-use content from previously submitted articles.

Here are some examples from my own writing:

Example 1

Original blog post:

How To Get Out Of A Writing Slump

Article that was bounced off of the blog post:

5 Tips for Getting Out Of A Writing Slump

Example 2

Original blog post:

Do I Really Have To Think About Keywords?

Article that was bounced off of the blog post:

I’m A Newbie To Article Marketing: Do I Need To Do Keyword Research?

The idea is to get the most benefit from your previously created blog post without copying it–you want the content on your own site to be unique, but you can still use your blog posts as a starting point in creating new articles.

If you learn how to do this you can get a content creating system going that can save you bunches of time and help you submit articles consistently.

Photo by Kristina B

A pretty common question I receive from folks is about when article marketing traffic – so traffic resulting from all the articles you have out there – will start pouring in.

There is a definite learning curve when you start website marketing, and if you don’t learn what expectations are realistic you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.

I wanted to go over some of the most common concerns/questions related to the topic of trying to drive traffic to a new site or newly marketing an existing site.

Hopefully seeing these questions and explanations will ease your mind enough that you can focus on the long term goal and stick with it long enough to see the fruits of your labors.

Can I get immediate results with Article Marketing or any other online marketing tool?

I wouldn’t count on it. Don’t get me wrong–results certainly can be dramatic. For example, publication in a major ezine can bring a surge of traffic over a few days. In a case like that you would see a sudden boost in traffic, but spikes like that are not lasting–they will die down after a few days or weeks.

When marketing your website, you are trying to build enduring traffic that continues to build over time.

You accomplish this by increasing your search engine ranking. Changing your search engine ranking is not something that happens overnight.

No matter how well you market your site, you cannot change how the search engines do things. When you’re trying to change your search engine ranking you just have to cooperate with Google and gauge your expectations accordingly.

How does Article Marketing help a site get a higher search engine ranking?

Through Article Marketing you will be building links. Search engines look at your links (among other things) to establish the authority of your site and how your site should rank in searches for certain keyword terms.

You want a higher search engine ranking?

Then you will need to build more links to your site…legitimately. I’m not talking about buying links–you need to put for the effort to create content that is valuable to other website owners so that they will link to you. Those are the types of links that Google values.

Article Marketing can also help you rank higher for keywords, by strategic and natural sounding usage of your keywords in your article, resource box and title.

I’ve been submitting articles for 2 months–why am I not seeing a big change in my traffic?

It will likely take 3-4 months at least before seeing results, longer if your site is brand new.

Why does it take that long?

As I mentioned earlier, the main way that article marketing increases traffic to a website is through an increase in search engine ranking–so when people search in Google or the other search engines (SEs) using your keywords terms, they will see your website listed higher in the search results. A higher listing leads to more traffic.

It is the increase in links that will cause Google (and the other SEs) to change your search engine ranking.

But when you build links to your site, they are not automatically calculated by Google. The links you build this week will not “show up” in Google for several months. The links are there, but they just haven’t been calculated to impact your search engine ranking.

The reason for that is that Google does not recalculate your backlinks every day, every week or even every month–usually it’s every 3-4 months that Google will revisit a site,  recalculate the backlinks, and then adjust the search engine ranking.

My site is brand new –when can I see results?

If your site is new, then the site needs to be indexed by the search engines first, before they know to go to your site and see what’s going on with your backlinks. So, it can take longer to see initial results when your starting with a brand new site.

I’ve got a story for you below about marketing a brand new website and how long it took…

I need some encouragement to stick with it–can you give me an example?

Certainly–when we were starting our blog Creative Article Marketing last year, it took about 5 months before the backlinks showed up in Google.

Yep, 5 months.

I know from personal experience that it is very hard to wait–when we were starting this blog we were checking expectantly every month to see when the links would show up, and it was a long wait (seemingly to us!) before we got to see the fruits of our labors.

Now our blog is getting great traffic that steadily increases, and it has a PR4 (and climbing!). This is after many consistent months of faithfully marketing this site with articles. Our blog is still a relatively new site (only about a year old), but it’s made a strong start thanks to Article Marketing.

In the first 4 months, though, it was like a flat line on a graph–we could not see much of any effect from our marketing efforts.

It took a while for the site to be indexed (it was brand spankin’ new), and then even though we were link building, the links were not showing up in Google yet.

Then, suddenly in the 5th month the links showed up and we received PageRank and the traffic started to increase.

This is the way that Google (and the other SEs) work. That is something that we wish we had some control over and could speed up, but unfortunately we can’t.

If you are wanting to market your site online, it is going to take time and consistent effort, whether you use article marketing or some other marketing tool.

It is not the sort of thing that has an immediate payoff. This is what is happening with your site, and it is what all of us go through when we’re starting to market a site.

It is unreasonable to think that at some magical date I will get a flood of traffic and backlinks–why do people tell me that?

It is actually not that unreasonable knowing how Google works. The date isn’t magical–it is the date that Google re-evaluates your site and adjusts your search engine ranking that you will see that flat line on your graph start to spike up. If you give up before that time then you will not see the spike.

Can you give me some more in depth information on what I can expect when I’m just starting to market my website?

We have some resources on our blog that you will find helpful:

The #1 Reason Why Article Marketing Fails

5 Things To Do Before You Start Article Marketing…

Alright, I understand now, and I want to give this a go. What do I do next?

*If you are seriously interested in driving traffic to your website, then please read those resources above.

*Come up with a plan for how you will realistically track your progress (the 2nd resource I listed gives you some ideas for creating that tracking plan).

*Check your stats once a month–not every day or every week, but once a month.

*Consistently submit articles every month.

*Know that it will take 3, 4 and sometimes even 5 months before seeing the initial results.

Trust that you can market your site. Others are doing it, and so can you.

Photo by splorp

I’m creating this resource with the intention of helping you newcomers maximize your time and focus on goals.

Here are the elements we’ll be focusing on:

• What can you expect (this is a big deal as you’re getting started)

• Setting priorities (what should you focus on)

• Organizational and writing tips

If you’re a newbie to article marketing (and you’re in good company if you are), then you can read this resource and get direction on what is absolutely necessary to focus on and what can wait until you’ve got more experience.

This will save you bunches of time and mental energy!

Okay, let’s get started…

What can you expect?

This is mandatory reading for everyone who is doing article marketing:

The # 1 Reason Why Article Marketing Fails

What are the major things I should focus on?

As a beginner, there are just a few things to focus on:

1. Submit articles consistently, somewhere between 2 and 8 articles a month per site is sufficient.
2. Take the time to craft a strong resource box–this will impact how many people will click the link in your resource box, so it’s important. Here is a very simple guide for writing a resource box.
3. Write educational articles. Do not write articles that are sales oriented. Write as if you are an expert in your field and you are teaching your target customers valuable information. All sales information should be saved for your resource box.
4. Pay special attention to your titles. Your title should clearly indicate what your article is about. Try to make your titles interesting. Imagine that you are a reader looking through hundreds of article titles–what sort of title would catch your attention?

As a beginner, if you just focus on these 4 things, you will make an extremely strong start.

Tips For Writing Quality Articles Faster

1) Brainstorm a list of article topics. Do this before trying to write–get an article topic list going and keep it by your desk.

2) Create a writing schedule. Pre-decide how many articles you will submit each month, then schedule writing days for yourself. Mark these days on your calendar.

I’m telling you–this writing schedule saves my life and helps keep me on track. If you’re anything like me, when you’re left to your own devices to decide when is a good time to write, you will put it off indefinitely.

On your writing days, select a topic from your pre-made list of topics, and write about it.

3) I find it infinitely helpful to create an informal outline before getting started writing. I get my main points down on paper, then I flesh things out.

4) Use an article template if you’re short on writing ideas.

5) Give yourself a word count goal. You might aim for a 500-800 word article. Putting boundaries on your articles helps you write faster.

6) If you have a blog, you can rework blog posts and submit them as articles.

Keep It Simple

That is it–that is all you need to know to make an excellent start.

Do not feel the need to learn every last thing about article marketing right at the get go–that’s a sure fire way to burn yourself out.

You do not need to get tricky, you do not need to try to understand SEO, you do not need to employ any advanced techniques to get more dramatic results.

Save yourself some time and brainpower. You can explore the more advanced elements of article marketing  after you’ve got these basics down pat.

But as you’re beginning–Just do these simple things and you will make a strong start.

Additional Resources:

Article Marketing Tips For Beginners

Photo by wwarby

You have more article ideas than you realize.

The most common question any Article Marketer asks is this:

“What should I write about?”

I think folks sometimes get stumped for topics because the expansive sea of possibilities is just mind boggling.

I have a theory though:

You have more article topics at your fingertips than you realize.

You may even have ready-made content just waiting to be tweaked and submitted as articles.

Look at your own website.

Now, if your website is a blog, then you already have a storeroom of article topics at your disposal, but in this post I’m specifically talking to people who have traditional websites.

If your website is like most people’s websites you have on your very own site ideas for several articles just waiting to be written.

Example:

Let’s say you’re a Virtual Assistant– it’s likely that you have a page on your site that answers the question “What is a Virtual Assistant?” or “How A Virtual Assistant Can Save You Time”, or some other content that you’ve written to help persuade an interested party into being interested in working with a Virtual Assistant.

That info is a prime candidate for an article or two or more.

Audio Content From Your Website

Have you done any podcasts or audio interviews on your topic?

These can be great sources for article ideas.

Example:

Recently Mark Bowden, an internet marketing specialist from the UK,  interviewed me on various aspects of article marketing for his own clients. It was about a 45 minute interview with lots of good questions asked by Mark, and I had linked to the interview from my site and encouraged readers to listen to it.

But then I thought–”Hey, that’s good content. I can use this!”.

I just re-listened to the interview and took notes on major topics, then broke those topics into articles.

More Article Topic Sources On Your Site and In Your Business

E-Books

Have you written an e-book on your topic?

Pull chapters from your e-book and adapt them to be articles. You might have to do some slight rephrasing on the intro and concluding paragraphs, and also whittle the chapters down to article length (no more than 1500 words), but depending on the length of your book, you probably already have the makings of several dozen articles.

Your List Messages

If you have a list of email subscribers, what are you sending out to your readers?

Do you offer an e-course (you know, lessons sent out automatically to people who sign up)?

Or perhaps a newsletter?

If you have a list, you must be sending information to them.

Look through your email messages and see if there is anything that you can morph into an educational article. Remember, you’re looking for educational, teaching content to turn into articles.

For messages going out via email, you do not have to rework them like you would if the content was on your own site. It is fine to use verbatim content that is going out to your email list in an article.

Your Customer Support Replies

Many times I’ve used my customer support replies as the basis for articles. You can sort of tell when you have an ‘article worthy’ customer support reply:

• You find yourself explaining a very important concept that is essential to the person’s success.
• You notice yourself teaching –you’re providing background info, explaining things in depth, and giving examples.
• You’ve noticed this same question coming up before, and you know that if a handful of people are asking it then likely many others are wondering the same thing.

My attitude is this: As long as I’ve taken the time to write a really thorough reply to a great question from a customer, why not use that content in an article?

Much of the work is already done, and my mind is on the topic anyway. Makes the most use of the time and brainpower I’ve invested.

How To Re-Work Website Content

Here are some pointers for transforming content on your website into articles:

1) Rework your appropriate website content and submit it as an article. Do not submit the same content verbatim–it is in your own best interest to keep the content on your own site unique.

*Exceptions to this would be if you were using audio content, email message content, or content you’ve sent as a customer support reply. For those, you do not need to change the content to be sure the original is unique.

Only content you’re using from your own website needs to be re-worked.

2) Be sure that your article is not promotional–you cannot talk about yourself or your business or services in the article body. Save that for the resource box. The info you provide in your article needs to be objective and educational, so content on your website that is all about you and more of a sales pitch for your business would not be appropriate material.

3) Set a word count goal–Your article should be at least 400 words long, but it can be  longer than that. A good goal to aim for is 400-800 words.

4) Use the website content as an outline for writing your article. That will help you write the article faster. I use outlines for all my articles, and they help me stay on track.

5) Write for different sections of your target market. For example, you may write an article on one topic 2 different ways–One for newbies and the other for experts.

Have You Found Hidden Article Ideas?

When you find a source of article ideas on your own site or in your own business, it’s like discovering a hidden treasure.

I found one of these recently–I looked at an e-book I’d written and noticed that I could use the table of contents as an “article idea list”. That is a 70 page e-book, so I will be set for article ideas for a while!

I hope this post has helped– have you found any hidden article ideas?

Photo by Cayusa