Article Writing Advice from an Article Directory Owner

So you write articles? You probably already know that one of the ways to promote a website is though article writing and its distribution throughout the net. This is where article directories come in and help distribute the articles for people to browse through and read. As an article directory owner, I am in charge of screening submitted articles and therefore have to distinguish good content from bad content. The following are my pieces of advice for successful article writing:

Create interesting and informative title and content.
Readers are selective which means that they look for quality and relevancy when searching for the right article. Articles with catchy titles and descriptions that make their way into article directories receive a lot of views. Once a reader has started reading your article, it must be able to hold his attention to keep him focused on it till the very end. At the end of your article is the resource box, which contains a link back to your site. If your article has sufficiently whetted the curiosity of your reader, he will click on the link and visit your website.

Induce your reader to read the entire article.
When reviewing articles that are submitted for my article directory, I am able to distinguish from skimming the title and first few sentences whether I am in for a difficult, tedious read or not. Ordinarily, people instinctively avoid having to read something you have to stop and analyze about and this affects the way you should write. Like for example, do not write a sentence that could have been broken down into 3-4 sentences or could at least have had a few more commas. Do not give everything away in the first sentence; leave something for the remainder of your article. A reader would not bother to read the rest of the text if you told him all he needed to know in the first sentence. Opening sentences should be clear and brief and yet interesting enough to draw the reader’s attention to keep him reading till the very end.

Avoid adjective and adverb overkill.
It is shocking at times how often writers fall for the mistake of excessive usage of adjectives or adverbs. When one adjective or adverb can suffice, use that one alone. Adjectives and adverbs can be useful tools for as long as they are used correctly in writing. Describing something as “the greatest, most fascinating, highly entertaining, outstanding” is overkill. If the word “greatest” will do, pick that one and drop the rest. Overkill of descriptive words will either bore or confuse your reader. What is worse is that he will doubt your capability as a writer.

Here are several additional things to remember:
1. Check your article for misspellings. Beware of software that automatically puts in words for you.
2. Have the courtesy to use standard grammar. When unsure of something, ask for help.
3. Never make use of run on sentences, the ones that are too long.
4. Feel free to place comma’s in your work. If it will help make your article easier to understand, by all means use them!

When writing, put your readers first in all considerations. Formulate interesting, helpful, and easy to understand articles and that way, attract more readers to visit your site.

Maximize the Benefits of Article Marketing

In the SEO arena, search engines are the major manipulators that determine how much viewer traffic your site will receive. It is therefore crucial that marketing firms make use of all the possible strategies available to increase the search engine results (SERP) page ranking of your website. Amid the numerous SEO strategies that exist, article marketing is considered as the top one, because of its capability to deliver guaranteed SEO results.

One reason for this SEO strategy’s popularity is because literally anything can be marketed through articles. Examples of what can be marketed by articles through the web include: blogs, RSS Feed, Podcast, forums, online communities, Hub of websites, Squidoo lenses, newsletters or ezines, hosted videos, affiliate products, HubPages, Wikis, social networking websites, etc. And you may even market mundane services with the help of articles. You can probably say that everything you could possibly sell is available right on the Internet. With this in mind, you can now see why article marketing can be applied to so many fields which has contributed to its popularity as a SEO strategy.

Article marketing also has its rules and guidelines so pay attention to them to achieve maximum results in optimization. Despite the fact that SERP ranking focuses on optimizing web pages along with obtaining an increasing number of back links, you should not discount quality content as an asset.

In fact, content has turned out to be increasingly significant as of late. Readers today are definitely selective and will not take notice of mediocre or shabbily made articles. Readers want fresh, vibrant, informative, and even entertaining content to read. Even if your site had the right keywords, key phrases, good meta tags, awesome images and graphics, and user friendly URLs – in the end, people will keep coming back to a site that offers interesting and informative content that is regularly updated. So don’t skip out on quality content despite the urge to produce many articles to fill up your website.

Have your blog available in your site so that your visitors might want to read from it too. And, even though Google won’t penalize you for duplicate content, it is advisable to stick to unique content. After all, Google will only rank an article once even if it appears in various other places on the web.

Now that you have been soundly advised to maintain having quality content to see the full effectiveness of article marketing as a SEO strategy, your next concern is how to keep producing such unique and excellent content on a regular basis. If you have any problems in this aspect, it would be wise to hire the services of a professional SEO company that offers great service for affordable fees.

Maximize the benefits of article marketing through these pieces of simple advice and reap the fruits of your labor in the long run. Good luck!