That Will Cost You Dearly!

Article marketing has been, is and always will be an excellent free method to drive consistent, quality traffic to your site or blog while at the same time building lots of backlinks to improve your ranking.

Additionally, as you post more and more articles, you’ll become known as an “expert” author. A little bit of credibility goes a long way, especially on the internet, where you need to do all you can to improve your chances for success.

Now, as wonderful as this sounds, there are a few pitfalls in article marketing. Two of those are serious enough they could actually prevent you from making any headway at all with your articles.

Make those two mistakes and it means that all your hard work of typing original articles and submitting them to various article depositories every day is completely for nothing.

As devastating as this sounds, and you’ll discover soon enough why, these marketing killers are actually very easy to avoid. Yet surprisingly, a great majority of article writers (newbies and seasoned pros alike) make those two gigantic blunders almost every time they submit an article to an article directory.

What Are The Two Article Marketing Killers?

The two biggest article mistakes made by most authors when submitting their material to article hosting sites are:

1. Wrong Category:
If you want your article to be read …
If you want your article to be picked up by other webmasters …
If you want your article to be seen online …
If you want your article to increase your backlinks …
If you want your article to generate more traffic …

It absolutely is imperative that your post your article under the correct category.

Writing an article about “dog training” for example and posting that article under “social issues” will not do you and your article any good.

Why? People that are interested in dog training aren’t going to look under “social issues” to find your article and people interest in “social issues” aren’t going to read your “dog grooming” article.

Yet I can tell you (from operating my own successful article directory), this is by far the biggest error made by article writers.

Before you submit your article, verify not only your spelling and punctuations, but, and this is far more importantly, verify that you are submitting your article under the correct category.

If not, you’re wasting your precious time … !

2. Wrong Resource Box:
The resource box is usually located at the end of your article. It is that part of the article where you as the author are allowed to “plug” yourself. It is where you promote your stuff.

You need to use your resource box to inspire your readers to take action. It’s the only way you are going to get positive results (traffic and subscribers) from your article.

There are two things you must consider when writing your resource box:

1. your resource box must be a “continuation” of your article and not some random, generic text.

Time and again I see articles that are just magnificent, yet the resource box has absolutely nothing to do with the article. Do you think anyone reading your plug that isn’t related to your article is “inspired” to want to learn more?

2. only have one (two tops) active links in your resource box. Once again, make the links relative to your article and above all, make sure they work.

I can’t begin to tell you how many resource boxes I see with non-active links. Do you think your reader is going to copy and paste your link? Fat chance …

Don’t flood your resource box with a slue of active links either. That confuses your readers and deters them from clicking on your links. Again, stick to only one (two tops) active links in your resource box.

Finally, always use your link in your resource box to capture your readers information. In other words, route the resource link to your sign up page before you forward them to the product or site you are promoting – unless you own that product or site. That way you get to build your list that you can follow up with at a later date.

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There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of articles online never get to see the light of day. I can tell from my having my own article depository, just how many articles are “filed” wrong.

Are you that much in a hurry when submitting your articles that you just can’t take an extra few minutes to ensure yourself your article is placed where it belongs?

Ask yourself this:

You spend at least 10 minutes or more writing your article. Isn’t an extra 2 more minutes worth your while to ensure your online business gains more exposure, higher ranking, more traffic and more subscribers, just by making sure you file your article under the correct category and verify that your resource box is up to snuff?