TAPF Articles

Of the seven or eight most common ways people promote their websites, article marketing is almost certainly the most effective. Unfortunately, there are five mistakes that can ruin an article marketing campaign. Avoid them at all costs.

1. Authors often fail to realize the importance of titles. Without an interesting title, a story is far more likely to be rejected by an online article directory. And even if a story makes it past the article directory editors, few website owners will use it on their sites if it does not have an engaging title.

2. Don’t view an article merely as a vessel for your priority keywords or a prelude to your author’s box. Give your readers helpful information. If your articles are good, they’ll be spread all over the Internet, along with links back to your website. If they don’t have good content they won’t have legs. It’s really that simple.

3. Many website owners believe that only articles written about the same topics covered on their website will help improve their search engine rankings. In fact, the opposite is true: by writing about a wide variety of subjects, more webmasters will consider using your stories.

4. Article writers often tend to be formulaic. In some instances they try to cram a prepared list of keywords into an article. In other instances they try to ensure that 3-4% of the content consists of keywords. While such formulas may make sense from an SEO point of view, they often make articles unreadable.

5. Authors should never be the only ones to edit and revise their own articles: those who do walk a tightrope without a net. It is not just about catching spelling errors and typos, it’s about word choices, typos, and transitions as well.

Article marketing done properly requires considerable time and thought. But, because it can establish you as an authority, produce immediate traffic to your site, and boost your search engine rankings, it is well worth the effort. Do it well.