Mamas On The Web

How to write great articles that get results

June 6th, 2008

Writing and submitting articles to article directories is a great way to increase exposure to you and your site. If done properly, article marketing can help establish you as an expert in your field, generate tons of links to your website, and attract targeted traffic that can turn into subscribers and sales.

Before I sit down to write an article to submit to article directories, I do a search for my topic at EzineArticles.com to see what has already been submitted.

This may not be the case with every category, but 9 times out of 10, the articles that are already submitted in my niche are badly written pieces of crap.

Here are the main problems I see when reading other articles:

Horrible spelling, grammar and punctuation - I’m not perfect and I certainly make my share of mistakes, but making the same errors over and over again is unacceptable in my opinion. There is no reason why a person can’t do a simple spellcheck or proofread their articles before submitting them.

Rehashed information - Coming up with a completely unique idea is extremely difficult, but you can make an article unique by injecting your own personality or humour into it, or by adding your own comments, opinions and experiences. Don’t sound like a broken record by repeating what everyone else is already saying. Find a way to make it original, make it your own.

Boring as hell - If you can’t compel the reader to read past the headline, you’ve got problems. You have to draw people in with interesting content and keep them reading right to the end of your resource box. Be passionate. Be exciting. Don’t be repetitive and monotonous or your article will be a boring flop.

Inaccurate information - The main purpose of articles is to inform the reader. If you’re giving them bad information, your credibility will quickly go down the proverbial drain. If you’re not sure of something, do the research until you are sure. If you’re not willing to do the research, don’t write about it.

No structure - A structured article will help guide the reader from beginning to end. Generally, the reader will expect a title, introduction, body and conclusion, followed by the resource box. If your article is all over the place, chances are most people won’t read to the end.

Here’s a tip though. The main goal of submitting articles is to get people to click on your links in the resource box. If you end your article with a great conclusion, they may not think to continue reading your resource box because they got what they came there for.

However, if you leave them hanging a bit (by leaving your conclusion a little bit incomplete) then your reader will want to continue reading and clicking for more information.

Here’s a quick example:

Conclusion #1 - “Now that you’ve learned the 5 best tips for writing articles, it’s time for you to sit down and start writing.”

Followed by your resource box - “For more great tips on increasing the quality and effectiveness of your articles, visit Joe Blow’s website at blah-blah-blah.com”

And there you have it. Quality over quantity my friends.

I repeat, Quality (with a capital “Q”) over quantity.

You can write 100 crappy articles and get a few links and a trickle of traffic, or you can write 50 quality articles that will keep the links and traffic pouring in for years to come.

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Entry Filed under: Article Marketing