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Get Your Articles Blasted Across the Web
by Stephen Bucaro
http://bucarotechelp.comThe most effective way to promote your online business is to write articles for publication in ezines and on web sites. Many successful marketers use articles as the primary means of promoting their businesses. Unfortunately, many people think all they have to do is type up some dribble and publishers will be waiting in line to promote it.
As a member of several free content groups, my email is filled with articles every morning. Unfortunately, less than one in ten of those articles is good enough for publication. In this article, I reveal the criteria I use to accept or reject an article. I'm sure that some publishers use different standards than I do, but I suspect that most are similar to mine.
The most important element of an article is the subject.
The most desirable subjects are:- Web business
- Web marketing
- Web designNon-web related articles can get published if they are about practical useful matters, such as time or money management, health, computers, or employment. Don't waste your time writing about:
- Off line business
- Emotional or philosophical subjects
- Dated subjects (like 911)
- Book or product reviews (advertising)Another important criteria is the content of your article. Your article must contain practical, useful information. Most articles I receive are worthless dribble. After you have completed your article, re-read it to see if any of the statements below apply.
- It should be a letter to my mother
- It should be an entry in my diary
- It should be chatter for my coffee clutch
- It should be passed around at my church
- It's just rhetoric containing little practical or useful information
- It's about the basics, like ten million similar articles already out thereThe format of your article is also a very important factor in getting your article published. Follow the rules below to increase your chances of getting published.
- Your title should be six words or less (not counting connecting words like "the").
- Your paragraphs should contain between three and six lines. Keep your paragraphs short, but don't write an article full of two sentence paragraphs or straggling sentences.
- A publisher should be able to use your opening paragraph as a "lead".
- Don't use dates or refer to current events or holiday seasons in your article. If you do, your article will quickly become dated and unpublishable.
- Your link goes in the resource section at the bottom of your article. If you put a link to your web site in the body of your article, it better be a very good article. If you put more than one link to your web site in the body of the article, it better be a damn good article. Publishers are looking for good content, not a link farm back to your web site.
- Links to resources not on your web site should go directly to the resource. If the resources URL is long, provide link text with the link. Long links can mess up the formatting of a newsletter or web page.
- Use a closing paragraph as a summary or a conclusion, but don't use the phrase "in summary" or "in conclusion".
There are some techniques that will get publishers very excited about your article. Follow the tips below to get your article blasted across the Web.
- Search for every instance of "I" in your article and see if you can replace it with "you". People reading your article could care less about the writer. Always keep in mind that people are always thinking "what's in it for me?".
- People don't want rhetoric or useless information. Think of a way to approach the subject from a "how-to" angle. Again, people are always thinking "what's in it for me?" They want something practical and useful.
- Use numbered or bulleted lists in your article. This draws people to your article like a homing missile. Try it yourself next time you see an article. Your eyes are drawn right to the bulleted list in the article. I don't know why it works, but it does. Put a list in your articles every chance you get.
- Approach a subject from a different angle than everybody else. Be a devil's advocate. If everybody thinks something is wonderful, write an article about how terrible it is. Write about something that you think is a scam and use the word SCAM in the title.
The most effective way to market your online business is to write articles for publication in ezines and on websites. Unfortunately, most articles are not good enough to get published. You can write a quick, easy article that causes publishers to hit the delete button, or you can follow the rules above and get your article blasted across the Web.
