With the rise of e-commerce and online marketing, article marketing has developed into a great new business tool for ad agencies.
Short articles that relate and are of benefit to your target audience, position you as an expert. Once written you make these articles available for distribution and publication. There are a number of sources for online distribution. Well written content has potential of gaining you and your agency credibility with your target audience along with a positioning of expertise.
Below are a 8 tips for your agency’s article marketing:
- TITLE. The title of the article affects how many readers will choose to read it and thus is of utmost importance. You better reach your readers at “hello.”
- LENGTH. The length of the article is very important to the reader as well. I would also suggest your article stay within 350 to 600 words. If you feel you have great content, break turn your article into a series of articles.
- STRUCTURE. The way that you structure your article aversely affects readership. While it is okay to write long paragraphs in a book or print magazine, it doesn’t work for online articles. People tend to scan the internet. The want quick, easy to read information. Use bullet points and lists. Tell and interesting story. Make your article as enticing and yet as easy to read as possible.
- EDUCATE. The reader is concerned with one thing, “what can you do for me?” They wont read your article if you are trying to sell your agency’s services. They will read your article if you teach them something or entertain. Write for the benefit and needs of your target audience.
- AUTHOR’S BOX. Each article you write for distribution will have a ‘bio box’ which you can use to share information about you and your agency. The bio box should be brief. You can also provide a link back to your agency’s website or blog. I would also suggest a call to action, ie “for a free guide,” “click on the link below for a free booklet,” “subscribe to our monthly marketing tips.” The Author’s Box is the trade off your readers are willing to accept in exchange for the value your article has given them.
- YOUR SITES URL. You should always try to leave links to your website in the Resource Box and not in the body of the article. Your site URL is expected to be seen in your Resource Box. That is where it belongs.
- SEO. It is important that you write your articles for the best search engine optimization. You will be able to optimize your article by defining the best keywords, knowing what keywords your target audience would be looking for. Once you’ve found the best keyword for the article make it as a basis when writing. Optimizing through the keywords will help with your rankings in the search engines as the crawlers can read the press releases and articles. Thee title of the article, not just the keywords, also count in optimization.
- CONSISTENCY IS THE KEY. As with any new business tool I recommend, consistency is the key to success. A single article wont have a lot of pulling power. Develop a writing schedule whether it is one article a month or one a week. The more articles you have circulating on the web with links to your website the greater your audience will be.
“Trust” is the most important factor that people will use in their decision making process when they are considering whether or not to use your agency. Article marketing is a great tool to build trust with the target audience your agency is trying to reach.
Article marketing is definitely one of the more genuine and powerful ways of marketing your services online.
You have covered the basics really well. One thing I would suggest is that writers should always look to write a custom authors resource box for each article. Don’t get lazy. If you write a resource box that is specific to the article it will follow on more naturally, offer something relevant and prompt more people to ‘click’.