Professional copywriters know how tough the market is. It’s really not about the lack of jobs. Rather, it’s about the dirt cheap rates that companies and individual website owners are more than willing to give to freelance copywriters. There’s really nothing inherently wrong with it. Hey, if you can get a Chanel bag for $1, why not, right? But I should warn clients; it’s a different ball game where copy writing is concerned. Read the rest of this entry

Make no mistake about it. Article marketing takes a little more effort than simply writing articles and submitting them to article directories. This is the reason why there are cardinal rules in article marketing and they are are as follows:

1. Optimize your articles for keywords.
2. Write headlines that gain attention.
3. Evoke interest in the article body.
4. Call to action (CTA) in the resource box.
5. Get more visitors to visit your article.

There’s a reason why optimization for keywords is the number one step in article marketing. People use keywords to find things on the Internet. And keywords are what you’re going to use to bring your article to your intended audiences.

But of course, delivering the package is only the first step. Keep in mind that so many other competing websites are also fighting for attention, which is why you need to write headlines that grab attention. Headlines are essentially the makers and breakers of articles. If you want people to read your article, then attract them with a very good headline. In article marketing, there are certain types of headlines that grab more attention than others.

Headlines that begin with “The Top 5 Gifts To Give This Valentine” and headlines that ask questions easily grab more attention that others. Other types of headlines that attract attention are commands like, “Learn How To Groom A Dog Now!” and abstract headlines like “What You Should Know About Fluffed Tails and Trimmed Coats.”

It takes a skilled writer to pull off a creative headline. And it also takes writing skills to write exciting content that whets your readers’ appetite enough to make them click the link in the resource box.

When you article has been submitted to the article directories, you need to promote it even further. Keyword optimization within your article will get it ranked in the search engines; however, you need to generate links to your article so that it ranks higher. Thankfully, you can easily do this through social bookmarking. Bookmark your article at sites like Delicious to generate links to it. You can also use resubmit your article to other article directories, but with the link in the resource box changed to the link of the original submission.

People who venture into online businesses are surprised to find out that, at least in the beginning, the amount of work needed to get the business up and running is, in two words, A LOT.

If you own a website, you will know that the easiest part of setting up an online business is registering the domain name and associating it with a hosting account. What needs to be done next is something that takes up time, a lot of time: putting content to your website.

What It Takes To Make It Big

The difference between successful websites and crappy ones is great and authoritative content. People will always buy from websites they trust, and you can only create trust with great content.

But without tools for automating certain aspects of content generation, writing itself can become a full-time job. For people who hold full-time jobs and who have families to raise, this is NOT the way to go, because you could end up losing EVERYTHING before making anything on the Internet.

What Takes Times

In writing content, what takes the bulk of your time is the research. Unless if you are already an expert in your field, like a surgeon, there is no way you’ll know which information is valuable in your particular niche, unless if you spend a lot of your time researching. Depending on your research skills and the subject matter, this could take from ten minutes to two hours. Writing a single article takes about 30 to one hour, depending on your writing skills.

While 2 hours is just 1/12 of a 24-hour day, wouldn’t you rather spend it writing your article or doing something else?

You can give yourself more time to do other things by subscribing to paid automated writing tools. They are relatively inexpensive, yet they can save you a lot of time, especially in the research part of writing.

With so many articles competing for attention in practically all niches and categories, it’s really a wonder how the average article marketer can draw in readers to that coveted Call-To-Action, or much less grab their attention. As it is, it’s not enough that an article is optimized for a keyword, it also needs to be engaging.

Strangely enough, most article marketing articles found on the Internet rarely, if ever, have that “ah” factor that convinces readers to buy a product or a website. It’s a fact that most Internet users will only pay attention to the top 3 results on search engines like Google and simply scroll down the rest. You’re lucky if your article is indeed on the top 3, but what if you are on the top 4 and downwards?

Think Of Newspaper Headlines

Do you read newspapers? Or do you watch people at a clinic waiting for their appointment with the doctor? The average person will simply scan the headlines until something grabs his attention, then he reads it. Internet users treat search engine results pages (SERP’s) very much like newspapers – they only read the banner headline and scan the headlines of the secondary stories. (Keep this in mind when you feel like simply spinning articles for your article marketing.)

Thus, it is critical to create headlines that grab attention. Like the articles in the newspaper, your headlines will determine if your article is going to be read or not. You won’t get a second chance with your article if you don’t get it and do it right the first time.

Creating The Headlines

In other writing disciplines like copywriting, THE ingredient for success is the writer’s ability to harp on other people’s pain (major, major pain), and offering a solution to ease that pain. This pain-harping ability should show itself first in the headlines. Write headlines from your own experience, specifically, which headlines grab your attention the most?

In general, these are the type of headlines that grab attention in article marketing:

* How-to’s (“How To Win Your Man Back From His Mistress”) * Top 5 or Top 10 lists (Top 5 Things A Woman Can Do To A Cheating Husband) * Headlines that ask questions (Can You Really Live Without Your Man?) * Headlines with a call to action (Fight For Your Man!)

Headlines Are Only The Beginning

Headlines are really just the beginning. You need to support the headline with content that delivers up to its promise of offering a solution to their pain. Give the solution to them freely and repeatedly. For being hogged with information overload, people want something intangible immediately. They won’t be giving you their email address just to get more information.