Before Scott Glatstein, a pioneer marketing strategist and Founder
of Imperatives LLC started submitting articles online, the only
online exposure he had was his own website. A Google search term for
his name only returned 8 hits. Two of the 8 hits were for his
cousin. None of these hits linked back to Imperative's website. And
they were all unrelated to his current business.
By the end of the second article submission, a Google search for
"Scott Glatstein" yielded over 2,000 hits. A Google search for
"imperatives" returned the website in the #6 position on page one.
I'd say this is a huge success to get excited about!
But guess what?
When I told Scott about this success, I didn't get the emotional
response I was expecting.
Why?
Because, he understood this concept..
Article Marketing is Not Just About Gaining Link Popularity
You will automatically get links when writing and submitting
articles. The increased search engine optimization is a bonus. But
links don't put money in your pocket. So it should not be your top
priority.
Article marketing is about getting the right messages to the right
audiences and delivering measurable results that absolutely,
positively impact your bottom line. Scott understood this and that's
why he didn't get excited about his article marketing results until:
- He saw his articles on top online publications his audience is
reading such as CEO Refresher, CEO Online, and Chief Marketer.com
- His website traffic quadrupled
- He started getting targeted leads from all over the globe
(including Australia and the Kingdom of Tonga)
That's when Scott jumped up and down with excitement. You should
have heard the excitement in his voice when he called to thank me.
Here's How You Too Can Get the Right Messages to the Right
Audiences That Can Affect Your Bottom Line:
1. Identify your audience in the headline, within the
article and in your bio box. Not only will this help you
identify your audience, but it will also help you get published
more. For example, if I didn't change Jill Lublin's title from:
"Networking: Connecting is the Key to Magical Networking" to
"Networking for Women Entrepreneurs: Connecting is the Key to
Magical Networking," her article never would have been published by
a publication focusing on women entrepreneurs. Most likely, they
would have skipped right over the article, because they would have
never known that the article was perfect for their audience without
taking the time to read the complete article. Surprisingly most
publishers don't have time to read every article they receive.
2. Tell a story within your article that your audience can
easily relate to. This will help you identify your audience
and connect with them. At the Yanik Silver Underground Online
Seminar that I attended, legendary copywriter, Ted Nicholas spoke
about telling stories within your advertisements, and direct mail
copy. It helps you spark an emotional response and manipulate your
audience to buy your books, products or services. You must do this
with your articles as well.
3. Complete an all encompassed article submission campaign.
Here's how..
- Scour the Web for the best websites and ezines that your targeted
audience is reading, and make sure they accept article submissions.
You want to find websites that are highly visited and ezines that
are the most read. But more importantly, you want to focus on
finding websites and ezine publishers within your specific niche
that have strong emotional connections to their audiences.
- Submit your articles to niche directories that only accept
articles related to your content. These article directory sites have
fewer articles posted than the major article directories, but they
have more concentrated content. Readers going to these sites are
more targeted than the general directory sites. They have certain
problems and they're looking for solutions that you can provide.
- Submit your articles to article announcement lists and major
article directories like Ezinearticles.com, Goarticles.com,
Ideamarketers.com and Articledashboard.com. These sites do not bring
as many targeted visitors to your website. But they do receive
millions of hits per month from publishers looking to republish your
articles on their websites, blogs or ezines.
So What Are Your Next Steps Toward Article Marketing
Success?
Start following the above strategies and those mentioned in my
complete
A to Z Article System where I remove all the
guesswork, waste and frustration out of getting easy traffic, free
publicity and increased sales on a daily basis. And, you will get
the right messages to the right audiences that could absolutely,
positively affect your bottom line.