Inside of the Profitable Article Marketing Strategy and Structure

Regardless of your online business model, there is always going to be a need for content creation. The Internet is a unique marketplace. When consumers have a question about a product, service or process, consumers turn to the Internet to find answers to the questions that they are most interested in discovering the answers.

There are two types of copy that are presented on websites and in other online formats. First of course is sales copy. Sales copy is intended to actually sell a product. The second type of content or copy is informational materials that will help a consumer find answers to questions.

On your website, you often need to present both informational and sales copy, to influence your visitors to take the action that you desire for them to take. On the informational side, you present the information in such a way that people can make a good decision about the types of products or services that are available. With sales copy, your goal is only slightly different. With sales copy, your goal is to move your reader from the investigative process into the buying process.

Article marketing is a method of promoting your business that also relies heavily upon informational copy.

Most new business owners are a little bit confused by the concept of article marketing. Most people interpret the idea of "promoting your business" or "advertising your business", through article marketing, as an invitation to directly advertise products or services within the context of the article.

The difference between advertising and information is only a matter of degrees. Just as on your website, certain information is presented for the purpose of educating your prospect, and other information is presented for the purpose of taking your prospect from investigating your products or services to buying your products or services.

It is in this manner that article marketing and advertising differ only slightly...

The difference is rooted in the understood purpose of the content. To be more specific, advertising is designed to carry the reader into the buying process. But article marketing is informational in nature, created for the purpose of helping consumers find answers to common questions.

But wait... Didn't you say that article marketing is a form of advertising?

Indeed, article marketing is a form of advertising... The difference is that article marketing, first and foremost, is designed to help consumers find answers to the questions that occupy their minds.

Within the article, the goal is not to sell your products or services, nor to start the transition from information gathering to the buying process...

Instead, the goal of the article is to answer specific questions that consumers may have -- those consumers, who are most likely to buy what you sell...

For example, a consumer may be shopping for new pair brake pads for their car. They may want to know the difference between one type of brake pads and another type of brake pads. As a result, the consumer with the question will turn to the Internet to find the differences, advantages, and benefits of a certain type of brake pad... As a seller of brake pads, your business is perfectly situated to help this consumer find the answers he or she is seeking, and in doing so, your business is positioning itself to also get the sale.

Within article marketing, your goal as the writer is to answer the question on the minds of your target audience. By explaining to the people, who find your article online, the difference between one brake pad and another, you are positioning your company to capture the sale once the consumer has made his or her mind as to which brake pad he or she will want to purchase...

The goal of the article is to help consumers answer questions important to them... In this example, the article was designed to help the consumer who needed to understand why one brake pad was better than another... At the end of the article is the Authors' Resource Box, also known as the About The Author information.

As a writer, if you have done your job well by answering questions important to your target audience, the reader will naturally desire to know more about the person who wrote the article. It is in the Authors' Resource Box that you will make your pitch to get the reader to visit your website, where the real selling can take place.

The Authors' Resource Box serves four primary purposes. First, you need to put a face on the person who wrote the article. Second, you need to present a strong call-to-action to get the reader to visit your website. Third, you need to identify the website that you are trying to promote. Fourth, if you are interested in using your article marketing to positively influence how well your website will rank in the search engines, then you will need to add anchor text links to your Authors' Resource Box.

1. It is important to put a face on the person who wrote the article. However, larger companies make a mistake in this process by insisting that no individual should be singled out as the author of an article. This is a mistake because individual readers intuitively understand that a "person" was responsible for the creation of this content. From the standpoint of the company, I can appreciate the desire to not give attribution to an individual within the employment of the company. But, there is more than one way to crack this nut...

Pen names are an easy solution to this problem. Pen names are pseudonyms for people and companies, and they are used extensively online. Whereas, a company may not desire to define its brand, with the name of an employee, the consumer tends to be put off by articles that are not given any attribution through an individual. For the company, which would prefer not to define its brand through the name of an employee or contractor, I strongly recommend that the company develop a pseudonym that will represent the company, as the author of any articles developed for the promotion of the company.

2. A strong call-to-action is necessary to get the reader to take the action you desire him or her to take. As a promotional vehicle, articles that enable readers to solve problems or to answer questions are equally capable of delivering a reader to a website to take a specific action. But before the reader can make a decision about what he or she will do next, the reader must be encouraged to take the action that you desire him or her to take.

This is an area where most article writers fail. Most writers present a weak call-to-action to the people who just finished reading the article. Other writers fail to offer any call-to-action at all. This is the point in the process where the writer will earn his or her reward for having taken the time and effort to construct an article that people will have been happy to read. By presenting a strong call-to-action, the writer is able to move the reader to the action that the writer desires for them to take.

3. Next is to tell the reader what website arranged for the development of the article. Many online article marketers make a grave error at this point in the process... Many article marketers make the mistake of assuming that the anchor text link is the most important link in the Authors' Resource Box. This is a mistake for two reasons.

First, it is a mistake because when some online publishers copy the article for publication, the publisher does a straight copy-and-paste to his or her website, from his or her browser, without locating the article source code, which is often prepared to simplify the publication task for the publisher. If a publisher publishes an article, without getting the articles' source code, then all anchor text links will be lost.

Second, the plain text copy of your website URL is a branding opportunity for your website. When readers see a number of articles published with the same domain URL in the resource box, the reader makes a mental note of the name of the website. This is to your benefit in the long-term branding of your website.

For many article marketers, the branding opportunity is widely misunderstood and therefore unrealized.

People will not search for the name of a website, unless first they know the name of the website and why they would want to visit it. Until people recognize the name of your website and what you sell, your website will always be beholden to advertising and the search engines. But once people begin to recognize why they would want to visit your website on a regular basis, people will no longer need to go to the search engines to find your website.

After more than eight years of doing business online, 35% of my visitors type in the name of my website to find my website.

4. The final element of the Authors' Resource Box is the opportunity to develop anchor text links to your website, focused on specific keywords, for the purpose of influencing the search engines to attribute the specified keywords to your website, in the search engine algorithms.

In Conclusion

The first step to understanding how to use article marketing as a powerful and reliable method of advertising ones' business is to understand that the goal of article marketing is to help a company brand itself as a solid source of reliable and pertinent information that will allow the individual to answer questions he or she might have. The company, which helps consumers discover a solution to a problem or an answer to a question, is most often the company that will get the sale.

The article writer, who puts the needs of his or her target audience ahead of his or her need to sell products or services, is the author who will reap the greatest reward from article marketing.

As an article writer, you should strive to help consumers -- in your target audience -- to answer the questions they want answered in order to position yourself as a trusted source of reliable information. In doing so, you are ensuring that your articles will find a larger audience of people likely to purchase what you are selling.

So long as you are willing to develop your articles, with the intent of answering the informational needs of your target audience, then you will discover the true power of article marketing in the promotion of your online business.

My name is Bill Platt. If you enjoyed this article and found it useful, then you will love my newest ebook titled, "How To Use Article Marketing To Positively Impact Your SEO Efforts". It is 70-pages of hard-hitting information about how to make your article marketing truly profitable: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-seo.html Or, you can get warmed up with my free "Article Marketing: Beyond The Basics" ebook at: http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/advanced-article-marketing.html