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Writing good articles, submitting them to
multiple directories, and linking property back to your offerings are just the basic steps of article marketing.
To really ramp up the exposure, you should link to your articles that you are using to draw traffic from areas
all over the Web and create a web of interest from multiple sites. This way, you can build your image as an
expert in the field while quickly funneling people back to your website. This is particularly useful as an
intermediary space to wean people off of social networking sites and back to something a little more commercial
so that you can eventually get them to become subscribers to your business websites.
Update Social Networks With Article Posts
If people know that you are writing free
information that they can read, find helpful, informative, or entertaining, and don't have to buy anything,
they’ll be more likely to click some link back to your article. However, if you add a link to a social network
that goes directly to a sales page, people are jarred by going from a site that frowns upon such activity to one
that is openly self-promoting for commercial purposes. In between, you have places like blogs and article
marketing, where people aren't really on a social network anymore, but they're not on a commercial website
either. If there happen to be links back to the website from there, that's fair game and no longer deemed
unacceptable behavior, since the commercial link appeared in the proper context. It's a way of getting people
used to clicking your links from high traffic social network sites back to an area where you're going to lead
them back to your business website.
Cross Link Your Online Content
Once written, content is a good way to offer
something of value to people while keeping them hooked into your business. If you set it up right, you can use
article marketing to lead people off of other sites, like blogs, social networks, and news sites, back to your
website. You can also use your website to cross link to content on article marketing sites to offer your
visitors content that is valuable without having to copy it directly to your site and risk
self-plagiarizing.
All of your content should promote other similar
content, as you never know what someone is searching for and where they're going to find their answer. Besides,
the more someone reads your articles, the more likely that they will eventually convert from a loyal reader to a
loyal customer too.
Follow-Up For Article
Marketing
Once an article is written, it's not the end. You
may end up discovering new information that can be added to an already written article that will appeal to old
and new readers. You may find that you get contacted by someone who read your article and that you need to reply
to the inquiries derived from your article marketing.
Take A Cue From Popular Articles
Track your traffic stats and readership to
determine which articles are the most popular and which are driving more traffic to you. Once you know what has
hit a nerve, churn out a few more articles on the very same topic, but from different angles. It's an easy way
to follow up on a topic that already has had massive interest and that is sure to be a
crowd-pleaser.
Get More Exposure From the Same Article
Places like Squidoo that offer a form of article
marketing always promote fresh content over stale content. If you take the time to add new content or comments
to all of your articles to keep them fresh, they will be re-indexed by Google and/or the site in which they are
posted, giving you fresh exposure for a minimal amount of work.
Trace Your Resource Links
Use URL shorteners for your resource links so that you can track them better. When traffic comes to your site,
using something like a link developed in http://bit.ly to let you know what article that link
originated in, you now have an idea of the traffic coming from different topics and articles, not just from
different sites. This is very valuable information to mine to develop products and services that can meet an
already existing demand.
Above All, Have Fun!
Article marketing is a science to build traffic
and buzz about your product offerings, but it doesn't have to be a chore. It can be quite fun as you start to
engage in a conversation about topics of interest to you and your buyers. You can use the research and knowledge
from past popular articles to develop informational products that you can sell on your website too. If they like
the short articles, why not offer them a report or an ebook on a similar subject? The key is to find the topics
of interest to your audience and then customize your offerings to fulfill the demand and interest of people
coming back to your site. Article marketing is a great way to engender trust in your opinion and to help you get
more sign-ups to your website by providing more free content in exchange for an email address to send it to and
permission to email them information on your industry. Once you are armed with an email address, you can start
to market to them with email campaigns, as they have converted from reader to subscriber of your content, all
without much fuss. It's only a short step after that to go from being a subscriber to a buyer of your
products.
What do you think about the information about article marketing? I hope you enjoyed reading as
much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have any comments, please let me know.
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