Tag Archives: writing articles

Increase Your Online Visibility and Traffic by being a Guest Blogger

Getting traffic to your website isn’t just about building links and ranking in the search engines. That’s just one source of potential customers. Social media is the next source that most people consider and that’s definitely a way to increase your reach. The truth is that the more visible you are online, the more traffic you will get. That’s why guest posting on other people’s blogs can increase the traffic to your own site exponentially.

How does being a guest blogger work?

When you write an article for another website, all the people who visit that site will see what you’ve written. If it’s well written and engaging they will read the entire article and see the author box which gets included at the end of every guest post. If they enjoyed your article, they may then click on one of the links you’ve included in your bio. That’s where your traffic comes from. And this is traffic that wouldn’t necessarily have found you in any other way.

In addition, if you can create a conversation by encouraging people to comment on your guest post, you can increase traffic even more. Readers start to make a connection with you through the comments and want to learn more by clicking on your avatar that links to your site.

4 Keys to getting traffic from being a guest blogger:

Write quality posts on relevant topics. You should always be presenting your best quality writing anywhere you post. However, when you write for another person’s blog you also need to choose topics that are highly relevant to their readers (as well to your own market). They won’t read your article if it’s not relevant to them and the guest blog owner may not want to publish it otherwise.

Select sites whose readers are your target market. Choose the places you guest post carefully to make the most out of your efforts. Find ones that get a decent amount of traffic from people that you are trying to attract as customers. Gaining highly targeted traffic is one of the biggest benefits of guest posting.

Always keep track of comments. As soon as you know the post has been published, subscribe to the comments so that you’ll be able to respond. Whenever someone makes a comment, be sure to leave your own response right away. They will appreciate it and often click through on your link.

Write a tempting bio box. There’s no point writing an amazing guest post just to have a boring author bio at the end that leads to nowhere. Write a few words about yourself and then invite readers to click on a specific link for something, such as a special offer, report, free giveaway, etc.

What to write in your guest blog post

Here are just a few ideas for topics you can write as guest blog post on:

Create an FAQ about a topic related to your industry
Describe the most common mistakes people make in your market
Share your own experience with a relevant tool or tactic
Do a Top Ten list of best practices for success in your market
Write a “how to” tutorial on a topic that typically challenges people

If your guest blog posts are valuable and well-written, they will increase your visibility as an expert in your field. If the sites you choose to guest blog on have readers in your target market, you will start drawing more and more traffic to your site. And, as targeted traffic, these are the readers who are most likely to become long term readers and customers of your own.

Article Writing: 6 Ways Articles Increase Your Prospects, Publicity & Profits

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Writing articles and marketing with articles is one of the best and fastest ways to market your business. In fact, if you can write a 6 item grocery list, you can write an article that will help you increase your prospects, publicity and profits.

Here are 6 ways that you can benefit from articles:

1. Articles will quickly position you as an expert in your field.
The written word is incredibly powerful. Writing articles sets you apart from your competition. You never have to say “Listen to me, I’m an expert!” Your articles do that for you, because articles increase your “expert-ability.”

2. Articles can become little 24/7 salespeople.
Once you have an article published, especially on the internet, you now have a 24 hour, 7 day a week, 365 day a year international salesperson working specifically for you and your business.

3. Just one article can be used in many ways. This is called leverage. Just one article can be used as a free report, a bonus, featured in a newsletter or ezine, become part of an online e-course, become part of a book, and can be used in many other ways.

4. Marketing articles is simple, easy and inexpensive, especially when compared to other ways of marketing online.
It costs you nothing to write an article. It also costs you nothing to have it listed on article directories such as EzineArticles.com. Imagine what it would cost you to pay for that kind of exposure and publicity.

5. Articles can help you build a mailing list that you can market to over and over again.
Once you have a few articles out there, you will reach a certain critical mass where the prospects begin to flow in. Continue to grow past the critical mass, and you will grow to the point where you could not stop the traffic and prospects flowing in if you wanted to.

6. Articles allow you to stay in touch with customers/clients and sell more products or services.
We know that it can take from 5 to 8 times or more that you contact a new prospect to be ready to become a customer. Articles allow you to stay in touch with prospects and provide them with quality information.

These six benefits are really just the tip of the iceberg of all the many benefits of article writing and article marketing. Please feel free to leave a comment if you find this article useful.

How To Write Effective Articles

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A website is only as good as its content. If people don’t want to read what is on your site, then they will not use your services, either because they don’t trust you or don’t have the patience to sort through the content to find out what your service is. It is important to have well-written, direct articles on your site to keep users interested and generate revenue.

A simple way to get excellent articles is to hire a professional writer to develop them, but that can get expensive, especially if your site is just starting out. For many people, it is far more economical to write your own articles. But before you tackle this task, make sure that you’re up to it, because the quality of your articles can make or break your website or online business. Here are some tips to help you get started.

FORMAT THE ARTICLES FOR THE INTERNET

Online, less is more. When you’re writing articles to post on your site, try to put as much white space in as you can. Break paragraphs up and try to keep it so the user needs to scroll as little as possible to read the entire article. Also, if you can, include pictures with the articles. The goal is to make your articles appear as short and text-light as possible, so users won’t be intimidated and not bother reading them.

KEEP THE ARTICLES SHORT AND SIMPLE

A way to make the formatting easier is to keep your articles short. Again, the object should be to require as little scrolling as possible. The Internet is called the Information Super-Highway, not the Information Back Road. People are looking for as much from articles in as small an amount of time as possible, so help them out. Keep your sentences simple and easy to understand, without any unnecessarily long or academic words. Just be careful not to fall into the trap of writing like a child. You have to walk a fine line when writing for the Internet.

BREAK YOUR ARTICLES INTO SECTIONS

Try to organize your articles so that the paragraphs can be broken up very easily into sections under descriptive headings. This will make the reading experience much smoother and faster for the user by allowing them to pick and choose what they want to read, as well as helping them find a specific piece of information when they come back to your inspirational and enlightening articles. Do your best to make these headings catchy and fun, not boring chapter headings. They should draw the readers into the articles, not keep them away in fear of boredom.

USE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IN YOUR ARTICLES

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a mandatory skill when writing any articles for the Internet. Basically, SEO is using the same keywords over and over again in articles so that they are picked up by search engines, giving your website a higher search engine ranking. Search engines dominate the Internet, and you won’t bring much traffic to your site if you don’t use SEO. There are a number of articles and sites online that can help you write with effective search engine optimization technique. One thing to be careful of is not to use too many keywords in any of your articles. 2.5-4% is usually a good ratio. Any more and the reader will get turned off by the repetition, which defeats the purpose of SEO.

DRAFT, DRAFT, DRAFT YOUR ARTICLES

Never accept a first draft. No matter who you are, it won’t be up to your potential. After you write an article, put it aside for a day and don’t think about it. Then come back to it with a fresh set of eyes. You’d be amazed at what you’ll pick up, both grammatically and content-wise. Ideally, it won’t be uncommon for you to write three or four different drafts of an article before you find the one that you really like. Never be content with your first attempt.

Anyone can write effective articles for their site without hiring a costly professional writer. All it takes is practice and research. Read everything you can online to see what the writing style is. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, so find a writer or group of writers online whose work you admire and copy their basic techniques. Eventually, you’ll find your own rhythm for your articles. Having your voice on your site will add a personalized touch to your site that users will appreciate, because no one knows how to say what you mean better than you. The key is to just keep writing.