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Effective online article marketing strategies drive traffic using article writing.

Let’s say you have a specific topic you want to tell the world about. Or you might be selling something and interested in driving customers to a specific web site or page.

You begin by doing some keyword research about your audience and optimize your articles so more people see them and read them.

This is the basis for developing an effective online article marketing strategy.

Your 7 Keys To Article Marketing Success

1.    Placement of your keyword phrase is very important.  Both the frequency and position have a significant impact on your ability to rank for that particular phrase. At the very least your main phrase should be in your title, in the first paragraph of your article and in the last paragraph as well.  Use about 2 keyword phrases per 100 words in your article. Some directories allow a bit more than this, but to be safe this is a good rule of thumb.  Many directories have other places you can put your primary keyword phrase so be sure and read the “rules” at every directory before you start writing.

2.    Don’t Overdo It.  Target no more than two good keyword phrases per article.  As a matter of fact, trying to optimize your articles for only one keyword phrase is what I recommend so you don’t take focus away from your primary keyword phrase.  If you REALLY know what you’re doing you can try and rank for multiple phrases in each article. My thinking is that, while you are perfecting the art of keyword research and article marketing, keep it simple and don’t get greedy. You will likely just confuse the search engines and lessen the impact of any particular article.

3.    Write For The Reader First. People are presented with SO many options online that you really need to focus on entertaining and informing people in a unique fashion or they won’t bother reading your stuff.  Write your articles to be read first. If you try and make your articles keyword rich first, they will usually read poorly.  Write WITHOUT your editing or keyword hat on and let your thoughts and ideas just flow.  After you have written a great article, you can go back and find opportunities to place your keyword phrases in strategic places and change some wording so it reads well.

4.    Bold and Italic.  This one might seem a bit particular, but it’s amazing how the Google algorithms and search engine bots work. If you think about it, they try desperately to reward and notice the same things that an intelligent reader would.  It’s why most successful online article marketing strategies make use of bold fonts and/or italics. I typically will bold my keyword phrase once at the beginning and once at the end of my articles. Doing the same thing with italics is also beneficial.  Using H1 and H2 tags for categories and titles when appropriate will also have positive impact.

5.    The Resource Box.  In most every article directory there is a separate area at the bottom or the end of your actual article which is set aside from the article itself. It is a place for you to describe what you are doing, invite the reader to come to one of your other sites (Blogs, other related sites, other articles, etc..). The most common name for this set aside area is a “Resource Box”.  Think of it as a Signature “Plus”  In your resource box you want to entice your readers to offers related to your article’s topic or lesson. The idea is not as much to promote yourself as much as it is to take the stance that, “if you liked this and want to hear more…come visit…  You would then “invite” your reader to your offer ideally by using your keyword phrase as anchor text in a link in your resource box directly to your own website or related offer.  Don’t dismiss your resource box!! If used correctly it’s a very powerful tool, made even more powerful when attached to interesting, informative and compelling content.

6.    Where to publish articles is an ongoing challenge for article marketers. Although there are different opinions and positions on this, it is safe to say that the higher the Alexa rating and the higher the page rank, the more potential exposure and ranking your article will receive.  The mother of all article directories is Ezine Articles and having your article published here is certainly the least you should do.  The following is a list of the top 20 article directories based on Alexa Rating (as of the time of this writing):  Top 20 Article Directories.  Keep in mind these ratings and rankings change over time, but this list will offer you more than enough to get your article marketing campaign rocking.

7.    Do it well and do it often.  The key to online success with article marketing is no different than any other web site search engine optimization technique.  Too many people write a couple of articles or put up a web site or two and just expect the money to roll in. That’s not the way this works.  Even if you don’t have the time to write an article a day, write one a week, but do it for a year!  I’m telling you, the longer your solid content is out there, the more authority you will garner and the more familiar you will become with the tools of the trade…
The difference between once a week and once a day is simply speed to the end goal-Making Money Online-but it’s the same goal. It’s the tortoise and the hare, perspiration, persistence and consistency.
These cliches stick around for hundreds of years for a reason.

Is an online article marketing strategy necessary?  Assuming you are looking for credibility, authority and potentially an income from your efforts…Yes.

There are other things that you can do to optimize your articles but the critical thing is to actually have a strategy.   Online article marketing strategies can take great content rich articles and turn them into profit pulling traffic vehicles.

Don’t leave these traffic opportunities untapped. Do the research and use these tactics to get a lot more results from your article writing.