Internet Article Resource by Ian Basford - HTML preview

Traffic-On-Demand

What Is Your Motive?

Briefly, what do you hope to achieve from writing and submitting articles? Fame? Do you have a product to sell or an affiliate program to promote? Have you populated your personal homepage with strategically placed Google Adwords? Do you just want visitors for the sake of it?

We all need visitors. What's the point of creating a website if no-one knows it's there? I'm going to show you the best and most powerful way to increase the number of visitors to your website and it won't cost you anything except your time.

Think about this for a moment:

• Let's pretend that you own a website about fishing. You write an article about fishing and submit it to a couple dozen article directories. Most article directories will post your article within a couple of days, although some are so backed up with article submissions that it could take quite a bit longer. Within a week, your article is posted for all the world to see on almost all of the article directories that you submitted to.
• Along comes Bob, who likes fishing and is looking for information on the subject. He sees your article and thinks that it is very informative. Now, Bob has a website about fishing and he thinks that your article would sit well on his website, so he goes and copies it and places it on his website - along with the article resource box, which has links to your website, etc. Now, the people reading your article on Bob's website are pre-disposed to what you have to say, because if they weren't they wouldn't be reading your article on a fishing-related website.
• Bob also has a newsletter which he sends to his list once a week. There are approximately two thousand names on his list. In one of his newsletters he includes your article. In other words, he emails a link to your fishing website to two thousand fishing enthusiasts.
• Imagine the exposure your website would get if a hundred Bob's, or even a thousand Bob's, all came along and used your article!
• This example may be fiction, but the theory is sound. People all over the world are realising just how powerful writing articles actually is as a marketing or promotional tool. Forget about search engines and the like. Submit your website to Google and Yahoo and forget about search engines for the time being. Over a relatively short period of time, you will have so many links back to your website that a higher ranking in the search engines is guaranteed. This in turn will bring even more visitors to your website, and so it continues ...

Choose A subject

This should be obvious. Write an article that is related to whatever it is you are trying to promote. If you are unsure on this point, read the above section "What Is Your Motive?" again.

Research Your Subject

Because of the internet research has become, to a certain extent, a matter of cut-and-paste. This is important though - never copy someone else's work! If you find information that you can use, re-work it and re-word it until it bears little resemblance to the original - make it your own.

Use a search engine to find relevant matches to your subject. You'll quickly find that you have enough information for several articles or more. Write about different aspects of your chosen subject. With the fishing example, write an article about specific types of rod, or the latest innovation in rod design. Another article might be about the best way to catch trout. And so on ...

Ensure that the quality of information you are harvesting is good. No-one wants to read rubbish. If your article is sub-standard with regards to the information it contains, no-one will pick up your article to include on their website or in their ezine.

How To Write An Article

Read other articles. Familiarise yourself with accepted layout, the length of the article, etc. Remember, though, that it is not the length of the article that matters but the content. Content is king on the internet.

Make sure that the grammar, punctuation and spelling of your articles is up to scratch. If your article is a labour to read, then no-one will bother. Have a friend or colleague proof-read it for you.

Don't make your paragraphs too big. Try to keep them around five or six lines maximum. Long paragraphs online are a major put-off to a lot of people.

You want to have a benefit or tip every two paragraphs. Start with your biggest benefit and work your way through. Simply write a few paragraphs with a benefit or tip to help your reader and you've got an article. Remember that people will read your article to gain more knowledge about their subject, or what it is that interests them.

The Headline

This is perhaps the most important part of your article. The headline will, in most cases, be the thing that persuades people to read what you have written.

Your article is going to be light to read and packed full of tips and tricks. Your headline should convey this. For example:

• 7 Simple Steps ...
• 6 Things You Really Should Know ...
• More Tips To Improve ...
• 8 Big Reasons Why ...
• 10 Deadly [SUBJECT] Sins ...

As another example, here's an article I had particular success with:

• Four Key Points To Your Success Selling Niche E-Books Online.

It's obvious what that article is about. If you are interested in