How to write compelling article titles

Over the last few articles you learned how to write articles that are optimized for the search engines. Now we’re going to turn our attention away from SEO articles and instead talk a little about writing compelling articles in general. Specifically, we’ll talk about the most important part of your article: the title.

You see, if your title doesn’t capture attention – if it doesn’t make your reader dig into the article – then the rest of your article might as well not even exist. Your title can literally make or break the success of your article.

Let’s get to it…

Writing engaging titles. Your title has one job: to get the reader’s attention (and his interest) so that he starts reading your article. That means that whenever possible, you should include these two factors in your title:

A big benefit or promise. This is the most important factor to include in your title. That’s because your prospective reader always has one question in the back of his mind: “What’s in it for me?” And if your title doesn’t answer that question – if your title doesn’t give the reader a good reason to keep reading – he’ll click the back button and be gone in a flash.

Indeed, sometimes your reader will skim a long list of titles, as might be the case when your article title is included in an article directory, in the archive of a blog, in the search engine results and other places. Your title needs to jump out at him by smacking him between the eyes with a big benefit.

So how do you do this? By getting inside your prospect’s head. Think about what pains him the most and what he most wants. Think about his problems. Then create a title that suggests you can solve at least part of his biggest problem.

I’ll give you a few examples in just a moment. But first, let me offer another word of advice: Your prospects are looking for a quick and easy solution. Thus your title, when applicable, should suggest the easiest solution you know.

For example:

• Three Simple Ways to Burn Fat Fast
• How to Train a Dog in Just Three Days
• How to Buy a House With No Money Down
• The Quick and Easy Way to Make More Money

Look at those examples. Words like “simple” and “just three days” and “quick and easy” all suggest that the solution is indeed easy. And you’ll notice that all titles promise the reader a big benefit, too.

Now let’s look at the other factor…

A bit of curiosity. Whenever possible, your title should arouse curiosity. However, the key is to arouse relevant curiosity. For example, you can arouse curiosity about the “big benefit” that you’re promising in the title.

One easy way to do this is by including a word like “secrets” or “revealed.” It makes the reader curious about what he doesn’t yet know. For example:

• The Secret of Training a Dog in Just Three Days
• Revealed: How to Buy a House With No Money Down!

Another good word to use if you want to arouse curiosity is the word “surprising.” For example: “The Surprising Truth About Burning Fat.”

Yet another way to arouse curiosity is by offering a benefit, but tell the reader what the article is NOT about. For example: “How to Lose Weight Without Dieting, Exercise or Pills!” That title will have the reader wondering how to obtain the benefit without using those three common methods. And he’ll have to read the article to satisfy this curiosity.

Okay, that’s it for my introduction to article marketing series. If you like what you’ve read over the last few weeks and are keen for more you should visit http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

 

For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here (introduction), here (establishing your expertise), here (building your list), here (selling products), here (building back-links), here (traffic from SEO – part 1), here (traffic from SEO – part 2) and here (traffic from SEO – part 3).  

Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

Your article’s purpose – traffic, traffic, traffic from SEO (…part 3)

Last time you learned how to include your keywords in your article at a keyword density rate of about 1% to 3%. However, here’s the thing: the search engines want more from you.

You see, it didn’t take long for spammers to figure out that all they had to do is throw some gibberish content up, and it would rank well as long as it included their longtail keywords. So the spammers used content-creation and spinning tools to churn out thousands of “articles” in less time than it takes you to write one.

But the search engines got smart. The bots wanted to see more than just keywords. The bots also wanted to see content that was clearly related to those keywords. That’s when they started using LSA (latent semantic analysis) to discover whether the keywords were related to the rest of the content.

It’s easiest for you to understand this concept by looking at an example.

Let’s say you have an article about housebreaking a puppy. Indeed, let’s imagine that “housebreaking a puppy” is the keyword you’re trying to rank well for in the search engines. If your article really is about housebreaking a puppy, then we’d expect to find these sorts of words in your article:

• Housetraining
• Puppies
• Dog
• Dogs
• Kennel
• Accidents
• Urine
• Outside

And so on.

Indeed, the search engines expect to find those words too. And if your article doesn’t have at least some of those words, the search engines may possibly view your content with a suspicious eye. In other words, your article may not get ranked as well as you hoped.

Now, in most cases you’re naturally going to use these sorts of related words when you write an article. However, it doesn’t hurt to purposely include related words in your content at a greater rate than normal. Typically, this means using synonyms of your main keyword.

Look back at the previous example of “housebreaking a puppy.” The word “housetraining” is a top synonym for housebreaking. And using the word “dog” is a good replacement for puppy.

So here’s what you do:

• Include your main keyword (housebreaking a puppy) at a 1% density rate.
• Include your synonym (housetraining a puppy) at a 1% keyword density rate.
• Include the word dog (e.g., housebreaking a dog) at a 1% keyword density rate.
• As you write your article, be sure to include related words such as kennel, accident, urine, etc.

Now, this tactic raises the question: How do you know which words to use?

Some of it is common sense. If you’ve been working in the niche long enough, you’ll know what types of words your market uses. For example, if you’re trying to rank for a keyword phrase that includes the words “online marketing,” you may also include “web marketing” and “internet marketing.”

You can also use keyword tools to help you uncover these related words. Many tools have a feature where you can click on “synonyms” or “related words” to uncover still more keywords. For example, if you’re searching for “weight loss,” the related-words feature will give you words like “lose weight” and “burn fat.”

Now here’s another benefit of including related keywords: You can rank well for those words, too, especially if they’re longtail keywords. As such, you should look for longtail keywords when you’re looking to insert related words into your content.

That’s it for now. Next time, in the final article in this series, you’ll learn how to create the most important part of your article.

 

For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here (introduction), here (establishing your expertise), here (building your list), here (selling products), here (building back-links), here (traffic from SEO – part 1) and here (traffic from SEO – part 2). 

Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

Your article’s purpose – traffic, traffic, traffic from SEO (…part 2)

Last time you learned how to find and choose longtail keywords, which are words that tend to have fewer searches, but also less competition so that you can rank well for them in the search engines. This is particularly important when you’re not doing any other optimizing other than optimizing one article.

Now this time you’re going to learn how to create content around these keywords.

At first glance, it seems like you should include your keywords as often as possible in your content in order to rank well. However, it turns out the search engines see that tactic as keyword-stuffing, which they consider spamming. If your content is viewed as keyword spam, it won’t rank well. In some cases, it may not turn up in the search engines at all.

Instead, what you need to do is include the keyword enough times that the search engines know your content is about that keyword, while avoiding getting tagged as a spammer. Right now, most experts suggest that sweet spot is to create a keyword density rate of 1% to 3%. That means that your keyword should show up in your content one to three times for every 100 words of content.

Let me give you an example. If you’re creating the typical 500-word article, and you decide to be cautious and use a 1% keyword density rate, then your keyword will appear one for every 100 words of content. That means your keyword will show up a total of five times.

Pretty easy, right?

But the trick is to make the content readable and enjoyable for the prospect. See, some people get so caught up in creating SEO’ed content for the search engines that they forget the whole point is to draw in a prospect from the search engines. And if the content doesn’t read well, then the prospect is gone with one click of the back button.

So let me give you some examples of how to smoothly incorporate your keywords into your content…

Let’s say your keyword is “classic car restoration.” The first thing you want to do is include your keyword in your title, so your title might be something like:

• Classic Car Restoration Tips,
• Classic Car Restoration Secrets,
• The Truth About Classic Car Restoration.

Next, let’s suppose you create an article that includes an introduction, three tips, and a conclusion. If you put each of these items in their own paragraph, you’ll have five paragraphs with an average of 100 words each. That means your keyword should appear at least once in each paragraph. Here’s what your article may look like:

————————

Classic Car Restoration Secrets

So you want to know the secrets of classic car restoration! If so, you’ve come to the right place. In just a moment you’ll discover [insert summary of what the article is about]…

Classic Car Restoration Tip #1: [explain first tip]

Classic Car Restoration Tip #1: [explain second tip]

Classic Car Restoration Tip #1: [explain third tip]

And there you have it: The three classic car restoration tips that separate the amateurs from the professionals. [Wrap up article with conclusion]

————————

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to create SEO’ed content. Just take a few minutes to plan your article before you write it, and the end result should be fairly smooth.

That’s it for now. Next time you’ll learn a trick to make the search engines rank your content even higher than you’d hoped! See you soon…

 

For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here (introduction), here (establishing your expertise), here (building your list), here (selling products), here (building back-links) and here (traffic from SEO – part 1). 

Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

Your article’s purpose – traffic, traffic, traffic from SEO (…part 1)

In my last piece we discussed the fourth main purpose of your article, which is to build back-links for your web pages. This time (and in two following articles) we’ll talk about how to create SEO’ed (search engine optimized) content. This tactic takes care of the fifth major purpose, which is to use your articles to draw in traffic from the search engines.

Optimizing your content for the search engines requires you to follow these two steps:

1. Choose your keywords.
2. Write content around those keywords.

Let’s look at these steps separately and in detail…

Choose Your Keywords

First things first: What do I mean by “keywords”?

These are the words and phrases that you want your content to rank well for in the search engines. For example, “dog training” is a keyword. “How to grow tomatoes” is another keyword.

Now, you can’t just pluck keywords out of thin air. That’s because:

Reason 1: You want to choose words that your target market is actually searching for in the search engines. You see, you could optimize your content for something like “blue ants dance fast,” but what’s the point? If no one is searching for that keywords, then being at the top of the search engines for it provides you no benefits.

Reason 2: You want to choose words with very little competition. The words that your market is searching for the most in Google (and elsewhere) tend to be quite competitive. In other words, your competitors are also trying to rank well for those keywords.

The solution? You need to seek out longtail keywords. These are keywords that are typically longer, such as four or five word phrases. Because these are longer phrases, they don’t tend to be searched as often by your prospects. However, they’re also less competitive, meaning you have a better chance of ranking well for them in the search engines.

Let me give you an example. While “dog training” is an extremely competitive keyword, a phrase like “dog agility training London” has less competition.

Now, maybe you’re wondering why you’d want to rank well for a keyword that has a small number of daily searches. Here’s why: Because when you rank well for several smaller keywords, collectively you’ll get the same amount of traffic as you’d get for one large keyword. And since the longtail keywords aren’t competitive, ranking well is easy.

But that’s not all…

The bonus benefit of ranking well for a longtail keyword is that these words tend to be very targeted. For example, if you actually managed to get ranked well for dog training, you wouldn’t have any idea if the prospect wanted information or product related to obedience training, housetraining, agility training, deaf dog training, trick training, field dog training… and so on. But when you rank for a specific keyword like “dog agility training London,” there’s no question what the searcher wants!

So, how do you find these longtail keywords? Simple: By using a tool like WordTracker.com, MarketSamurai.com, the Google keyword tool or any other keyword tool. Simply input your main keywords into the tool (like “dog training”), and the tool will output dozens, hundreds or even thousands of related keywords!

Most tools show you how many searches a keyword gets on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Generally, you’re looking for words that aren’t the most-searched words in your niche, as those ones generally have a lot of competition.

Some keyword tools (like WordTracker) take it a step further by analyzing the search engine competition for you. If not, just plug in the outputted keywords into search engines like Google. Use quotes around your keywords to find out how many sites rank for that keyword. Then you can choose keywords that have a decent number of daily searches, but very little serious competition.

That’s it for this time. Next time you’ll find out how to create content around these keywords!

For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here (introduction), here (establishing your expertise), here (building your list), here (selling products) and here (building back-links).  

Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

Let’s build some back-links

If you’re trying to get your own website to rank high in the search engines for your chosen keywords, you need to optimise the content on your site to pull in that search engine traffic. That’s referred to as on-page optimisation, which we’ll talk about in an upcoming article. However, the other part of increasing your rankings is off-page optimisation, which refers to how many back-links there are pointing to your sites.

You see, Google and some of the other search engine engineers quickly realized that they couldn’t simply analyse a web page’s content to determine where the page should appear in the search engines. That’s because webmasters started gaming the system. They stuffed their pages with keywords. Sometimes they even used keywords that didn’t have much to do with the topic or content on the actual site. And sometimes even though the keywords were relevant, the content itself was low quality.

Search engine companies lose business when they repeatedly return low-quality results to people who are using their services. That’s why these companies soon started using outside factors – namely, links – to help rank sites.

For example, Google has a factor it calls Page Rank (PR), which is basically a measure of how many other sites link to it. You can think of these links as “votes” for a site. So the more votes a site has, the better chance the site has of being able to rank well for a chosen set of keywords.

However, not all back-links or “votes” are created equal. Here are some of the factors that are thought to be most valuable when getting links:

• Get one-way incoming back-links rather than reciprocal links.
• Get links from well-established authority sites, such as those with a high page rank.
• Get links from pages that don’t have a lot of other outgoing links.
• Get links from relevant sites (e.g., those that are related to your niche).
• Include your keywords in your anchor text. That is, the clickable part of the link that points back to your site should be made up of the keywords you’re trying to rank for. So if you’re trying to rank your web page for “dog training secrets,” then get back-links that use those three words as the anchor text.

While there are plenty of ways to get back-links, one way to do it is by posting your content on relevant, high PR sites in your niche. Just submitting your content to article directories helps you get back-links. However, if bloggers and others in your niche pick up your article and re-publish it, then you’ll have links coming in from relevant niche sites. Indeed, you may be able to get dozens or more quality links using this strategy!

For earlier articles in my Article Marketing introductory series you can click here, here, here  and here.

 

Now you can use simple articles to get more traffic, more customers and more cash. Fast. And you don’t need to be a world class writer to do it. Sound interesting? http://www.writenowforprofit.com/

Using article marketing to sell products

Hit the target with your article.

Wow. It’s been over a week since my last post. This little business of mine is starting to keep me a little busy. Which is, of course, a good thing.Anyway, back to my Article Marketing series (previous posts here, here and here). Here’s the next installment…

This time we’ll talk about another popular purpose of your article: Namely, selling products. Before we jump into this discussion of selling products directly from your articles, let me say this: Consider your strategy carefully. Let me explain.

If you’re drawing in people from the search engines who are looking for product reviews about a specific product, then it makes good sense to offer your review, pre-sell the prospect on buying the product, and then send the prospect directly to a sales page.

However, let’s say you’re pulling in more general traffic. This traffic is interested in the niche, but not necessarily in a specific product. Maybe you’re not even sure if the prospects you’re pulling in are indeed buyers.

In that case, you should consider sending these people to your mailing list subscription page (AKA landing page or squeeze page) rather than to a product page. That’s because if they hadn’t planned on buying a product today, you’re wasting your traffic if you’re not capturing their emails and following up with these prospects. They may buy from you tomorrow… but they can’t do that if you don’t first get them on a mailing list.

Indeed, one way to use content marketing to sell products – other than as described above, when you target people looking for specific product reviews – is to put your articles in front of your mailing list. That way you don’t have to worry about capturing email addresses. Instead, you can focus on solving your prospect’s problems.

Now, content marketing works no matter what you’re selling. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling a digital product (like an ebook) or a physical product (like a treadmill). It doesn’t even matter if you’re the product creator or just an affiliate. Anyone can use articles to sell products.

Here are some of the most common tactics:

• Offer a product comparison or review. The good thing about this type of article is that you’ll have buyers reading it, which means you generally get a decent conversion rate.
• Write a mini ad for the product. In other words, your article isn’t so much a “how to” piece as it is a short sales letter used to pre-sell the product. This generally works best for people who are already on the verge of buying and/or for prospects with whom you’ve built a relationship (such as blog readers or email subscribers).
• Solve part of a problem. And then pitch a product that solves the other part of the problem. For example, an article on housetraining dogs might cover the basics, such as how to pick out a kennel for the dog. Then you point people to a paid product where they can learn the rest of the procedure.

Another way to do it is to offer tips. For example, you can offer ten housetraining tips, and then point to the paid product to learn the process in-depth.

Still another way to do it is to offer an “outline” of the process. Here you list all the steps involved in housetraining your puppy, but the reader needs to order the product to get the details.

Finally, you could give info about how to solve an entire problem. This tactic works best if you’re selling a physical product. For example, you can offer complete instructions for how to grill the perfect steak. However, your instructions may include recommendations for a particular kind of grill as well as a steak seasoning.

There’s an endless array of ideas…

Building your list

This time we’re going to discuss the second major way you can benefit from content marketing. Namely, by building your list. (In earlier articles we talked about establishing yourself as an expert as well as providing an introduction to article marketing.)

There are two ways you can use an article to build your list: 1.Include a call to action to subscribe to your list from within your article. 2.Include a call to action to subscribe to your list at the end of your article (within the resource box).

If you’re posting your article on your own blog or some other property where you have a say in what types of links you can post, then you can create multiple calls to action. In other words, you can have a call to action in your article body as well as in the resource box at the end.

However, certain content sites (like some article directories) frown on you including a call to action in your article. In those cases, you’ll want to include a persuasive ad at the end of your article that encourages people to click through to your website. At a minimum, your visitors should arrive at a page with a subscription box. For best results, this page should include a mini sales letter that encourages people to join your newsletter.

You see, a lot of marketers send their visitors to the same landing page… even though these visitors came from different articles. If you want to go beyond being an average marketer, then you need to start creating different landing pages for different articles.

Now, this doesn’t mean you need to create an entirely new landing page for every article. Instead, you should create a different landing page for every main topic. Let me explain…

Let’s suppose you have a site about traveling. All your articles on traveling to Central America would go to one landing page, all your articles about traveling to South America would go to a different landing page, all your articles about traveling to Eastern Europe would go to still another landing page… and so on. You get the idea.

Here’s why:

1. By sending your prospects to different, yet tightly focused landing pages, you can actually segment your mailing lists. This allows you to send more targeted content and offers, which will boost your overall conversion rate.

2. The landing page itself will be more targeted. In the example above, you know exactly what part of the world your prospects are interested in traveling to, so your mini sales letter can talk about that location. What’s more, you can offer a freebie that’s also highly relevant to that location. End result: you turn more prospects into subscribers.

Now before we wrap this up, let me offer you a little trick…

If you want people to join your mailing list, you need to give them a compelling reason to do so. And one way to do that is by offering them “Part 2” of the article they just read. If they liked Part 1, they’ll want to read part 2. And indeed, those who don’t like the feeling of “loose ends” will feel virtually compelled to join your list.

Are you an expert?

In an earlier post I said that your article will probably serve one of five purposes:

1. Establish you as an expert.
2. Build your list.
3. Sell products directly.
4. Building backlinks.
5. Draw in traffic from the search engines.

Today we’ll look at point number one: Establishing yourself as an expert.

Let’s say you’re learning all you can on a particular topic. It could be anything, from classic car restoration to dog training to crafting to a medical problem. So you head to Google and start searching for different phrases related to this topic. For example:

• Reupholster classic car.
• How to paint a classic car dashboard.
• How to convert 6v to 12v electrical system.
• How to restore classic car.

And then you notice something. Seems like whatever phrase you’re typing into Google, you keep running into the same author. You find his articles on blogs. You find his articles on Facebook. Your search turns up articles on well-known authority sites. You even find his articles in article directories.

The thing is, these articles are good. They’re packed full of solid information and good tips. The more you read, the more you trust the author. Pretty soon, you’re specifically searching for this author so that you can read everything he’s written. And now you view the author as an expert.

Perhaps you really have had this type of experience. I certainly have. And so have countless others. When you see a name popping up repeatedly in a niche, you start viewing that person as an expert.

Your prospects are the same way. If they see your name enough times, they’ll start trusting you. This is particularly true if you’re creating quality articles and posting them in reputable places, like on authority sites and blogs belonging to other experts.

So the point is, if you want to quickly and easily establish yourself as an expert in the niche, you need to start blanketing the niche with high-quality content. While you can certainly use this content for other purposes – such as building your list, selling products or getting traffic from the search engines – you want to be sure the quality remains high.

Sometimes people get so focused on optimizing content that their article starts getting a little clunky. It’s hard to read. And so while it may certainly draw in traffic from the search engine, it won’t impress this traffic unless the article solves a problem, educates or entertains the reader.

So a focus on quality is key. Always remember that.

Article marketing stripped down

Here’s a basic introduction to the article marketing process.

Step 1: Choose your purpose. Before you even think of writing an article, you need to figure out why you’re writing the article. For example, do you want readers to take a specific action when they finish reading the article? Do you want to use the article to build your brand? Do you want to use it to pull in traffic from the search engines?

Step 2: Create the article. Once you decide on your purpose, then you need to create an article that serves this purpose. For example, if your goal is to pull in traffic from the search engines, then you need to choose keywords and write articles around the keywords.

Step 3: Write the resource box. Once you’ve completed the actual article, your next step is to write a resource box (AKA “author’s bio” or something similar). Don’t let the name fool you – it’s not really about you (the author). Instead, you should use this space as a mini-ad to get people to take a specific action, such as click on your link.

Step 4: Distribute the article. Once your article is complete, your next step is to distribute the article as widely as possible. This may include submitting it to article directories (like ezinearticles.com), posting it on your blog, asking other people to post it on their blogs, sharing it on niche forums, distributing it on social media sites… and so much more.

Overall, it’s a pretty simple process.

Here’s a taster of step 1 – determining the article’s purpose.

Generally, your article will serve one of these five purposes:

1. Establish you as an expert (personal branding).

2. Build your list.

3. Sell products directly (either as a vendor or an affiliate).

4. Building backlinks (for search engine optimization purposes as well as direct click-through traffic).

5. Draw in traffic from the search engines. Also, here and here.

You’ll notice that some of these purposes are complimentary, meaning you can certainly have multiple goals. For example, you can create content that both sells a product as well as draws traffic in from the search engines.

However, for best results you need to decide up front which of the above is your PRIMARY purpose. Then you can decide which other goals you’d like to achieve as a secondary purpose.

More soon…