The 'How To' Guide to Writing Expert Articles

The Principle of Your Articles in E-Commerce

As you know, the objective behind article marketing is to get traffic to your website in an effort to boost sales. This is accomplished very effectively by article marketing. In fact, article marketing is one of, if not the most, effective ways to promote your online business. This has remained true since the beginning of marketing on the Internet.

Article marketing is also supposed to build credibility and trust with your readers by providing them with useful and quality information. The secret is to provide good information but not all of the information. You want to provide just enough to entice them to find out the rest of the story. You never want to provide the readers with everything. You want to lure them to your site with your articles.

Don't think that you're doing the readers a disservice or anything. You are only leading them to get the rest of the information they want from you and your website. Remember that link at the bottom of your articles? That's what it's for.

Most articles are from three hundred words to five hundred and only take a few minutes to read. From that point, the reader should be compelled to read another three to five hundred words. They should be directed to your website, which is a sales page.

You also have the choice of promoting your products directly in your article content. The information must come off as informative and not a sales letter. Trying to pass a sales letter off as an article will hurt you more than help you. It can make you look extremely unprofessional and damage your credibility in the process.

Your resource box should not be a sales pitch either. It should contain actual information about you and be about a paragraph long with a link to your website. This will allow the reader to look farther in if they so please. You really want them to look in to your website so being a pushy salesperson will push them away really fast.

Remember, the idea is to establish yourself as an expert in your field, to inform the reader, and eventually direct them to your website in an effort to make sales. Make sure that you do the selling on your website and not in the article.

Creating a Successful Article

If you have writing ability, that's great and you are well ahead in the game of article marketing. The next thing you will have to learn is how to format the article in the correct way to get the results you want.

Every good article will start with an attention grabbing statement as a headline. Make sure that the headline is not all hype. Following the headline will be the sub-headline which can't be hype either. Headlines are very important especially in the Internet world.

Remember, there is no cover page to your article so it is important to compel the reader with the headline to read the article. The subheadings should serve the same purpose and should explain what the article is about. A good article should be at least three hundred words in length with no less than three paragraphs. You should avoid paragraphs with only one sentence that is just a few words long. This technique can be used to give that sentence a different effect but should only be used for that purpose.

The opening paragraph should explain what the article is about to the reader and what they will be informed on throughout the article. You can treat articles like a thesis from high school or college. Ask a question or make a statement and then prove it with the text. It is imperative that each paragraph lead the reader to the next. You want them to reach the bottom.

The final paragraph should close up your article by summarizing the subjects touched on by the article. Make sure to provide your resource box after the last paragraph. As a reminder to the reader, it will link them directly to your site. There they can learn even more about the reader and the topic.

Finally, you should make your article free to reprint for the readers. This can be a great way to get some extra advertisement for no cost to you. They may send it to a friend or family member that may also be interested in your website. Make it clear that is only available for reprint if the resource box stays intact. This way your article will become viral.

When you finish writing your article, put it aside and read it again the next day. Many times, writers become fixated on their own writing and the information may need a more objective point of view. Ask a friend to read it over for you. Make sure they know you want to them to criticize your writing constructively. This is a great way to get some feedback before you send the article out.