How to write Articles for the Article Directories

This is the fourth chapter of The 7 Steps to Article Marketing and today we are going to be looking at how you write an article for Article Directories, how it differs from writing an article for your Blog as well as talking about how you will use the Keywords from the last chapter Keyword Research - The first steps to Article Marketing.

To write an article for the Article Directories you first have to look at why your writing the article not only this but what you expect your readers to do after reading the article. There are several different ways people write articles for marketing on article directories each are very similiar yet have slight differences, whether this be in the structure, the title or just the resource box, at first you need to highlight what your main goal from the article is going to be.

Types of Article Marketing

Although I don’t believe there have ever been any “types” of article marketing actually specified for the sake of this article I shall be creating two different types of article marketing.

Affiliate Article Marketing (Bum Marketing)

The first type is called Affiliate article marketing this is where you write an article an submit it to the Article Directories purposely to attract potential customers who will click through from your article on to either your own landing page or the product owners website because you have redirected them there.

The way many affiliate articles are structured is through eye catching titles which sometimes cause conflict with similiar products in the market. Another way these article’s titles are written is through choosing specific words which stand out among the others such as “Honest Review”, “Official”, “Scam” I am sure you have all seen these types of article titles before.

The second thing I want to point out is that the article body is generally smaller than that of a none affiliate marketer, I say generally because some people do tend to write extremely long articles or in detail articles for Affiliate marketing. The reasons for this are because it would probably attract more people via the search engine,  more people would republish the article and readers are more likely to trust the Author because of their extensive article, they are likely to show more knowledge and there for readers assume they are experts in that field.

The last point I want to make with Affiliate marketing articles is that they generally set up the resource box so that it includes the last paragraph of the main article. This is because readers are then unaware that the article doesn’t finish before the Author enters the resource box and within this box the Author can add hyperlinks. Taking ezine articles for example, hyperlinks are only allowed in the resource box and there is a limit of 2 hyperlinks at a maximum.

Affiliate marketing articles generally call out for action at the end of the articles through either an incentive such as a free eBook or competition entry. This therefore entices the reader in to purchasing the product or opting in to their newsletter.

Ownership Article Marketing

Ownership article marketing is basically article marketing to your established website whether this be a blog or an e-business, anything that isn’t primarily an affiliate website. There are some noticeable differences between these types of articles compared to them of the Affiliate article marketers.

Starting at the top the titles are generally not focusing on a specific product or calling out to the readers. Although they are still eye catching ownership article marketing is generally about building backlinks and traffic through article marketing, instead of selling products or services.

The main difference in this type of article marketing compared to Affiliate article marketing is the length of the body, it is generally larger because the Author knows more about their field they are generally able to write more detailed, in depth articles. The obvious benefits of such method is that readers generally feel more inclined on visiting their website and they assume that the Author is an expert in their field.

Another major difference is the way that the Author ends their article although its usually with an incentive of some sort they generally are able to blend the call to action in better with their article. The call to action may offer free eBooks when they subscribe to their website/Blog or they may promote a forum or detailed videos or podcasts.

I hope you enjoyed this section of the article, I just wanted to add a general outline of my two different types of Article Marketing, although there are other factors which constitute to the differences from article marketing for selling products for commission to article marketing for your own personal website I felt it was of use to my readers to just outline some of the main differences.

How to write the Article?

Title

In my experience with article marketing I generally make the title either really long or really short, I will either use just the product name/main keyword or I will try to go in to as much detail as possible in the title so the reader knows exactly what they are getting when the click to read my article.

There are a couple of reasons I opt to do this, I shall explain them seperately.

Short and Sweet

Keeping your Article title short and sweet can be as eye catching as putting capitals on every word or making the title as long as you can. The reason for this is because not many people use short article titles so you will stand out among the crowd. The second benefit of using a small title is that you have more chance of ranking in the search engines for your main keyword, if thats all you add to the title.

Long and Lumpy

There are obvious benefits for having your article title long too one which crosses over both short and long is the fact that it can be eye catching to the potential readers. Obviously it will depend on the catergory and position of the page you receive but generally article titles are in between short and long, therefore both at each extreme will stand out more than the other.

The second benefit/reason of using a long title is that it enables you to fit all your keywords in to your title so that it helps your search engine optimisation methods for ranking.

The third and final reason for this is because it helps the reader figure out exactly what your title is going to give them, the information or usefulness that the article will be. Although it could work both ways in increasing or decreasing your traffic it is more likely the traffic will be much more targeted due to the long detailed title.

Tip In your title you want to add your main keywords, just like you would on the title of a page on your Blog as well as the title of your article.

Description and Keywords Box

Just like you would with a web page or a post on a Blog, you ensure that your keywords have been included in your description and in your keywords box.

Tip Check out other descriptions for articles within your market, if they are long make yours short, if they are short make yours long makes yours the odd one out so it stands out more.

Body

In my own experience I have used two different types of article writing for the body of my articles when submitting to Article directories. The first has been written for Affiliate marketing and I shall talk about this first.

Writing a body for Affiliate Article Marketing

Writing the body of my article for Affiliate marketing generally sees me writing a 300 word article 250 of the words go in to the articles body and the last 50 go in to the articles resource box.

The reason I keep my articles short and sweet is because I don’t want to bore my readers, I would rather them act on my call sooner rather than later and lastly the most important one for myself is that it is cheaper. I tend to outsource a lot of my article marketing articles, mainly because I don’t have the time to write them myself, so the shorter the articles are the cheaper it is for me and the higher profit ratio I can keep on my affiliate marketing campaign.

Writing a body for Ownership Article Marketing

This differs slightly to my last explanation because when I promote my own personal Blogs through Article marketing I want to keep the reputation my Blogs may have and only build on this. Therefore my articles body’s are generally written with more depth and explanation. I will take the time and pride to structure the article correctly and making the article look aesthetically pleasing to my readers, trying to ensure that it is scannable. I will add bold text and include tips basically like I am doing in this article.

The article will generally be 500 words or over however they don’t exceed 1,000 words, the reason for this is because I don’t want to bore the reader and don’t believe that it would add any value or benefits to my article marketing campaign.

Resource Box

The resource box is one of the most important parts of your article this is where you will be placing your links to your landing page or Blog and this is where you have to entice your readers to follow you to your website.

An excellent method to use for the resource box is the one I mentioned earlier, add the last paragraph of your article to your resource box. It doesn’t have to be huge and depending how big my article is I add 50 to 100 words of the main body article to the resource box.

Next you want to add your two hyperlinks depending on what your promoting how your promoting it and if your going to use the same keywords as the anchor text or not things will differ slightly here however some guidelines are to use two different techniques for the hyperlinks.

For example in the first link you will write a whole sentence explaining the product or service or blog and when this comes up in the text you hyperlink it. The second hyperlink is then placed in a paragraph below which will just ask them again, simply to follow you or click through and you may hyperlink “click here”, “subscribe here”, “read more here”, “buy here” you get the idea.

Tip: Check your hyperlinks! For a lot of the Article directories they dont convert your html link to the finished hyperlink until the article is live so it is very important to check that the link is going to the right place, check for spelling errors or errors in the html code. Thiscould save you a lot of time in the future and also ensure you have maximised the amount of sales and/or traffic you can receive.

I hope you enjoyed todays article it was a little bigger than usual however I want to ensure I get every last detail in to the articles I write for you. I hope you find it informative and useful, please use the power of social media to bring attention to it. Thanks.

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