8 Things Informative Articles Can Do For Your Business
Why do online businesses invest money and time into well-written, informative articles for their websites? Because they increase web visibility, establish credibility, increase traffic, keep their name in front of customers, and make them money.
Article marketing is one of the most effective methods of advertising on the Internet, and it also translates well into offline marketing. Here are eight things you can expect a strong article marketing campaign to do for you.
Establish you as an expert. A good set of useful, informative articles will put your name out there as an expert in your field. Many people believe they shouldn't "give away the farm"--that the more knowledge you share, the fewer clients will need your services.
But many businessowners find that the more they share, the more people are likely to hire or buy from them. If people see you as an expert, they are likely to trust you with their business.
Encourage prospects to trust you. In a cutthroat, competitive sales environment where your competitors are going for the "hard sell," you can stand out by offering prospects straight talk instead of a sales pitch.
With a helpful and informative article, you can show them that you want to help them make the best decision possible--even if it isn't buying from you. If they think they can get honest information from you, they're more likely to choose your company when it's time to make a purchase.
Generate traffic. Publish your articles on article directories, and they can get picked up by other publications. Include a resource box with a link back to your site, and people will follow it. The more people see the articles you write, the more traffic you'll see to your site.
Generate backlinks. One of the ways search engines measure a website's popularity is by taking an inventory of how many links from other sites point to it. If you publish your articles on other sites with a link back to yours, you raise your link count.
But if you don't get your articles published elsewhere, don't worry. If you write well, you can still get attention and links by publishing to your own website.
If people find your site and like your article, they may link to it on their own website. They may pass the link to their friends. They may submit it or bookmark it to social networking sites. Good content is called "link bait," and that's exactly what it's supposed to do--attract links from other sites.
Give you an endless wellspring of good content. Search engines also like websites with continually changing content. With a regular stream of excellent articles, you're likely to get a boost in your search engine rankings. Well-written articles can be used as blog entries or added to a continually growing resource section.
Raise your search engine visibility. Most of the benefits we've discussed so far add up to one very important thing: better search engine rankings.
An increase in links, continually changing content, and a raise in hits all contribute to your visibility on the search engines. Of course, this brings you even more traffic. Manage your content well on the Internet, and popularity will build on popularity and make your business soar.
Keep you in front of your customers. Well-written articles can do a lot for your traffic and online visibility. But if you package them as newsletters, e-newsletters, and autoresponders, you can also use them to stay in front of customers and prospects.
Publish a weekly ezine full of helpful advice, discount offers and coupons. This ensures your customers will see your company name once a week, and be reminded of your expertise and professionalism. This means that the next time they're looking for what you sell, they're very likely to look to you--not your competitors.
Build an email marketing list. If you package a series of articles into an e-newsletter or autoresponder series delivered to subscribers' email addresses, you'll have a strong list of emails from prospects who already have a proven interest in your business and product.
This list is more valuable than gold; it's a list of "hot" prospects who are predisposed to buy what you're selling. You can then market to them with an e-zine or autoresponder series.
Article marketing is an essential aspect of any search marketing campaign. It can bring a strong boost in traffic and sales, raise your visibility, keep your company in front of prospects, and more. With good content, anything is possible.